The results, reported in Nature Communications, give insights into how cancer evolves across the tree of life and could guide the development of new therapies.

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute have identified almost 2,000 bacterial species living in the human gut. These species are yet to be cultured in the lab. The team used a range of computational methods to analyse samples from individuals worldwide.

Building on its ongoing work with Athena SWAN to address equality imbalances, the Institute is seeking to further address the wider issues of equality and diversity that can affect both the makeup of its scientific staff and the ability of its scientific samples to represent a diversity of ethnicities and gender.

For the first time, researchers have revealed the different molecular identities of important immune cells, called T regulatory cells, in peripheral non-lymphoid tissues like skin and colon. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and collaborators revealed that T regulatory cells have tissue-specific receptors and other adaptations, allowing them to move to the correct place. In future this could help understand how to target therapeutic cells to specific places in the body, for targeted treatments.

The new resource will allow scientists to detect which bacteria are present in the human gut, more accurately and faster than ever before. This will also provide the foundation to develop new ways of treating diseases such as gastrointestinal disorders, infections and immune conditions.

Organoids are a powerful new tool for cancer researchers. The cells, derived from patients tumours and grown in the lab, mirror the cellular complexity and architecture of an individual tumour. Having 100 organoids from patients with three types of cancer begins to reflect the huge diversity of tumours.

Genetic testing improves the diagnoses of abnormalities in developing babies that are picked up during ultrasound scans. Using genome sequencing, scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and their collaborators improved diagnoses of abnormalities detected by ultrasound by around 10 per cent.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and collaborators have revealed that the interleukin 10 receptor (IL-10R) is critical to prevent uncontrolled whipworm infection in mice and a damaging immune response in the gut.

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have developed a new approach to understand the functional effects of genetic variations associated with a disease, even if they aren't located in a gene. Using this approach could help scientists uncover previously unknown mechanisms that control gene activity and determine whether or not cell work normally or, in the case of genetic diseases, the cells malfunction.

The team were able to generate a high quality genome from just 100 nanograms of DNA. This advance could have positive potential for humans as well, for example in the future it could be possible to assemble the whole genetic code of a patient’s cancer, from a single biopsy.