Can your DNA say if you love or hate Marmite, or prefer a Malbec over Merlot? Genetic testing is hitting the mainstream, but what can your DNA actually reveal about you? Join us on Valentine’s night for the first event of a lively new series of Café Sci to find out more about the real science truths, and discuss how you think genetic data should be used.

The most comprehensive genetic study of malaria parasites in Southeast Asia has shown that resistance to antimalarial drugs was under-reported for years in Cambodia. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators have shown that the parasites developed multidrug resistance to first-line treatments extremely rapidly.

Wellcome Sanger Institute Group Leader Dr Sarah Teichmann has received the prestigious Mary Lyon Medal 2018. This annual recognition, named after the distinguished geneticist Mary Lyon FRS, rewards outstanding research in genetics by scientists who are in the middle of their research career. As part of the award, Sarah has been invited to present a lecture at one of the Genetics Society’s scientific meetings.

The role of genetics in the risk of having an immune disease could be missed in research, scientists suggest. Using a combination of stem cells and novel analytical tools, scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators discovered that clues to the contribution of genetic variation to disease risk lie not only in the genes, but also in the molecular switches that control those genes.

BioBright, a firm dedicated to creating the smart laboratory of the future, has announced a collaboration with the Wellcome Sanger Institute that could lead to the faster development of drugs for diseases of the immune system like rheumatoid arthritis.

Stronger-SAFE is a £3.9m Wellcome Trust funded project that will increase our understanding of how trachoma is transmitted, and hopefully lead to the development and testing of new, more effective interventions and treatment approaches. Professor Nick Thomson, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), is part of the team that are using new DNA sequencing approaches to better understand how this disease is spread.

To commemorate the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute turning 25 in 2018, the Institute and its collaborators are sequencing 25 new genomes of species in the UK. The final five species have now been chosen by thousands of school children and members of the public around the globe, who participated in the 25 Genomes Project online vote.

Takeda is a global, research and development-driven pharmaceutical company with expertise in oncology, gastroenterology (GI) and central nervous system (CNS) disease that will complement the offerings of GSK, Biogen, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and build on the initiative’s success.

The largest-ever genetic study of mosquitoes reveals the movement of insecticide resistance between different regions of Africa and finds several rapidly evolving insecticide resistance genes. Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes and rising resistance to insecticides is hampering efforts to control the disease. Reported in Nature, this genetic resource will help to develop new tools for monitoring resistance and managing insecticide use, and for designing novel control methods.

A study has found an unexpected new drug target for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) that could open new avenues to develop effective treatments against this potentially lethal disease. Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the Gurdon Institute and their collaborators show that inhibiting the METTL3 gene destroys human and mouse AML cells without harming non-leukaemic blood cells.