COVID-19 – Wellcome Sanger Institute

COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute

We are developing real-time genomic monitoring of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the UK to aid public health response, and monitor genetic mutations which could allow the coronavirus to escape vaccines

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Screenshot of online COVID-19 lineages surveillance tool

COVID-19 Surveillance Tool

This website shows how SARS-CoV-2 lineages have changed in frequency over time across England

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COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium

The Sanger Institute is a key funder and partner of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, providing large-scale, high-throughput DNA sequencing and analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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COVID-19 surveillance (as of 14 June 2021)

340,857

coronavirus genomes sequenced by the Sanger Institute

531,259

coronavirus genomes sequenced by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium

300+

Sanger staff have contributed to the 7-days-per-week operation

COVID-19 Surveillance delivery team

A roll call of the 300+ scientists, administrators and volunteers who are woking together to make Sanger's large-scale, high-throughput COVID-19 sequencing work happen

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COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Protocols

The Institute is contributing a range of protocols on all aspects of large-scale, nation-wide virus sample and metadata collection, preparation, sequencing, analysis and data visualisation to the work of COG-UK

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Read our Sanger Institute COVID-19 blog

Stories of how Sanger scientists are contributing to the surveillance effort

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Wellcome Sanger Institute

Join our COVID-19 National Genomic Surveillance work

Are you a software engineer, project manager, data analyst or project coordinator? Help us track the spread and evolution of COVID-19 across the UK ...more

Sanger Seminar: Comprehensive genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK

Seminar: Exploring how the the Sanger Institute sequences SARS-CoV-2 genomes, and how this data is used by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium for surveillance and new variant identification; including the B.1.1.7 variant.

Q&A session with Dr Jeff Barrett, Director the Wellcome Sanger Institute COVID-19 Genomics Initiative.

Human Cell Atlas COVID-19 research

Through our collaborations within the Human Cell Atlas initiative, a number of our research teams are exploring how the SARS-CoV-2 virus interacts with the cells in the body to gain access and cause symptoms.

To find out more about this work, please visit: https://www.humancellatlas.org/covid-19/

CDC, Alissa Ecker/MS and Dan Higgins/MAMS

Sanger Innovations

INSIGHT is a COVID testing strategy designed by Sanger Institute scientists that could be developed as a point-of-care or home-based test. It is potentially scalable to the population level with the use of next-generation sequencing technologies. ...more

Latest COVID-19 News and Blogs

27 May 2021

Genomics in a pandemic – Shedding light on the invisible

Experts from the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium discuss sequencing SARS-CoV-2, variants, and viral fitness landscapes.

18 May 2021

Car manufacturing, cellular biology and COVID

Rachel Nelson, head of the Cellular Generation and Phenotyping (CGaP) facility, reflects on managing science at scale, including the lessons ...

30 Apr 2021

Championing Team Science

Professor Muzlifah Haniffa shares her thoughts achieving large-scale science.

29 Mar 2021

Fighting Pathogens with Data and Partnerships

"Data analysis in genomics means that you can work in something that is meaningful."

25 Mar 2021

Salivary gland cells revealed as sites of COVID-19 infection

Human Cell Atlas findings point to role for saliva in SARS-CoV-2 transmission

CDC / Alissa Ecker, MS / Dan_Higgins, MAMS

17 Mar 2021

SARS-COV-2 infects cells via specific viral entry factors that are more abundant in elderly, men and smokers

These findings offer a molecular explanation for the reported differences in disease severity for COVID-19 patients depending on age, gender and ...

11 Mar 2021

Genomic surveillance – the world’s binoculars focused on infectious diseases

Monitoring the microorganisms that cause COVID-19, malaria, cholera and a whole range of other diseases enables researchers to track outbreaks, ...

3 Mar 2021

Genomics study identifies routes of transmission of coronavirus in care homes

Genome sequencing was combined with detailed epidemiological information to examine the impact of COVID-19 on care homes and to discover how ...

12 Feb 2021

New COVID-19 saliva testing strategy could translate into easy-to-use home device

The new testing approach would be easier to collect and simpler to process in the laboratory than the current nasal-swab process.

5 Feb 2021

Sequencing COVID: our latest stats

As the sequencing hub of COG-UK, the Sanger Institute is sequencing the genomes of coronavirus samples from across the country. ...

25 Jan 2021

Looking Down a Microscope and Seeing Discoveries Happen

Andy Russell is a PhD Student in the Voet, Lawniczak, and Billker groups at the Sanger Institute, studying cancer and ...

21 Dec 2020

20 Things We Learned in 2020

This has been a year that none of us will forget in a hurry. The Institute is immensely proud of ...

19 Nov 2020

COG-UK computing effort wins collaboration award for COVID-19 work

HPCwire award recognises consortium's sequencing of tens of thousands of viral genomes

16 Nov 2020

Wellcome Sanger Institute and COG-UK receive £12.2M UK Government investment for COVID-19 real-time genomic surveillance system

Institute researchers will support the COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium's work by providing high-throughput virus genome sequencing, creating surveillance software to ...

3 Nov 2020

Sequencing COVID – what now?

Helping to track coronavirus outbreaks.

22 Oct 2020

Sequencing COVID-19 at the Sanger Institute

This photo essay goes behind the scenes of the effort to sequence the genome of the COVID-19 virus at the ...

19 Aug 2020

The race to sequence SARS-CoV-2

The Sanger Institute is built for high-throughput science – but the project to sequence coronavirus demanded more samples were handled more ...

27 Jul 2020

Impact of The Technician Commitment

Kelly Vere, Programme Director of the Technician Commitment, explores the progress of the scheme across the UK.

16 Jul 2020

From bacterial behaviours to COVID-19

Sushmita Sridhar has paused her work on a gastroenteritis-causing bacterium to help diagnose the virus that causes COVID-19.

13 Jul 2020

Explore COVID-19 science in action with new Human Cell Atlas animation

Mapping COVID-19: How the Human Cell Atlas enhances our understanding of the disease

1 Jun 2020

From cancer, stem cells and organoids to COVID-19

Sanger scientists speak about their new roles in sequencing SARS-CoV-2 genomes.

22 May 2020

Analysis of COVID-19 Genomes reveals large numbers of introductions to the UK in March

The data reports, published by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), show the value in mapping COVID-19 lineages across the UK ...

7 May 2020

Sanger scientist receives Chan Zuckerberg Initiative support for COVID-19 study

Roser Vento-Tormo will use single-cell technologies to understand human immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the progression of the disease

23 Apr 2020

Key nose cells identified as likely COVID-19 entry points

Study with Human Cell Atlas could help understand transmission of the virus