Sanger Centre

The files in this sub-section were created during Sulston's time as Director of the Sanger Centre and concern: the Centre's foundation; the development of the Hinxton site; administrative functions; laboratory projects undertaken by staff; visits to the Centre; internal communications.

1990-2000

29 boxes, 1 outsize box, 1 outsize folder and 27 3.5inch floppy disks

In the early 1990s John Sulston put forward a proposal to build a genome sequencing centre that would ultimately sequence part of the human genome as well as the genomes of other organisms. Such a Centre was jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council (MRC) and was named the Sanger Centre after double Nobel Prize winning biochemist Frederick Sanger. The Centre was established in 1992 and based at the MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology whilst suitable accommodation was found. A site at Hinxton, a few miles outside Cambridge, was initially leased and then purchased and staff moved on site in 1993. John Sulston was the Centre's first Director and oversaw the sequencing of a third of the human genome alongside finishing the C. elegans genome sequence. Staff at the Centre also sequenced the genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Sulston was succeeded as Director by Allan Bradley in 2000 and in 2001 the Sanger Centre changed its name to the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.