Researchers at the WTCHG have carried out an extensive analysis of the genomes of laboratory rats, combining mapping and sequencing techniques to discover 35 genes that contribute to 31 conditions such as multiple sclerosis, anxiety and ...
A collaboration between the WTCHG and the Institute of Cancer Research has won £2.7m from the Wellcome Trust for a research programme leading to a test for almost 100 genes that predispose people to cancer, using screening methodology developed by Illumina. WTCHG's contribution has been to develop the methods of analysis for the genetic data. 'A real strength of this programme is that the analysts are working directly with the people in the lab generating the data and the doctors that need to use it', says Professor Peter Donnelly, Director of WTCHG.
Prime Minister David Cameron visited the Centre on Friday 3 May while he was in Oxford to attend the launch of the Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery. He met Centre director Peter Donnelly and a group of early career ...
Climent Casals-Pascual and his colleagues at the WTCHG have identified parasite proteins that are accurate indicators of both the presence and severity of malaria. 'With these markers, more accurate diagnostic kits can be developed,' says Dr Casals-Pascual, 'so quick, correct diagnosis can lead to correct treatment.' These proteins are now available for development through Isis Innovation, the Technology Transfer Company of the University of Oxford.
Dominic Kwiatkowski and his colleagues at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and the Sanger Institute have found distinct sub-populations of malaria parasites in Western Cambodia that are resistant to artemisinin, currently the most effective anti-malaria drug available worldwide. The 'fingerprinting' technique used by the group can provide a rapid and reliable method of tracking artimesinin resistance. The new study is published in the journal Nature Genetics.
The latest issue of the University's alumni magazine Oxford Today features interviews with Peter Donnelly, Sir Walter Bodmer and Mark Robinson on the People of the British Isles study, which traced the genetic origins of Britain's ancestral populations. Click on the online reader and turn to p. 27
Jeremy Farrar, Professor of Tropical Medicine and Global Health at Oxford University and Director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam, has been appointed Director of the Wellcome Trust. He will take over his new post on 1 October 2013. Professor Farrar has worked closely with WTCHG researchers who are interested in the genetics and epidemiology of malaria and other tropical diseases.
Professor Gil McVean, who heads a research group in bioinformatics and statistical genetics at WTCHG, gave a talk on 9 March 2013 at TEDxWarwick entitled 'A thousand genomes: a thousand stories'. View his talk here, just posted online.
'What we have achieved here is close to the holy grail of foot-and-mouth vaccines', says Dave Stuart, MRC Professor of Structural Biology in the WTCHG and Life Sciences Director at Diamond Light Source. 'There is no chance that the empty shell vaccine could revert to an infectious form.'
The new 46-gene test is 'a significant step change in the way we do things', says Dr Jenny Taylor of WTCHG, Programme Director of the Genomics Medicine Theme of the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.
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