For the first time, scientists have provided unbiased estimates of the number of mutations needed for cancers to develop, in a study of more than 7,500 tumours across 29 cancer types. Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators adapted a technique from the field of evolution to confirm that, on average, 1 to 10 driver mutations are needed for cancer to emerge. The results are published today (19th October) in Cell.

The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) Consortium has released a blueprint for the international initiative’s efforts to create a comprehensive reference map of all human cells, a project that will form the basis for a deeper understanding of human health and for diagnosing, monitoring, and treating disease.

Researchers have shown that high genetic diversity plays a key role in the evolution of drug resistance, by priming new mutations. The study could help scientists understand the evolution of resistance to antimicrobial and anticancer drugs.

After a few years of routine use of the two vaccines many strains of S. pneumoniae, including the most prevalent disease-causing ones, had been eliminated. Yet, the bacteria has not become less common, instead the vaccine-targeted strains had been replaced by others that less frequently cause disease in children. The latest research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, provides a new explanation for how this may occur.

Anglia Ruskin University and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have received funding to launch a new degree apprenticeship to help address the acute shortage of skilled professionals in a big data sector which is growing by 56,000 jobs a year.

Patients with a rare bone cancer of the skull and spine – chordoma – could be helped by existing drugs, suggest scientists from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, University College London Cancer Institute and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust. In the largest genomics study of chordoma to date, published today (12 October) in Nature Communications, scientists show that a group of chordoma patients have mutations in genes that are the target of existing drugs, known as PI3K inhibitors.

Published in Nature, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators explain how they created Expanded Potential Stem Cells (EPSCs) in mice, for the first time. These cells have the features of the very first cells in the developing embryo and can develop into any type of cell, which current stem cell lines cannot.

In this exciting collaboration, students from 60 schools in the UK will work with scientists to find and identify all the genes in the DNA of a global parasite, the human whipworm. The information from the huge Genome Decoders Project will help researchers understand the biology of the parasite, and aid the development of vaccines or treatments.

The research was published in Nature and is the first time that genome editing has been used to study gene function in human embryos, which could help scientists to better understand the biology of our early development.

The first large-scale genetic study of people in Papua New Guinea has shown that different groups within the country are genetically highly different from each other. Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their colleagues reveal that the people there have remained genetically independent from Europe and Asia for most of the last 50,000 years, and that people from the country’s isolated highlands region have been completely independent even until the present day.