Genome Reference Informatics Team
Tree of Life Programme
The team consists of Senior Bioinformaticians and Senior Computer Biologists to cover software development, data analysis and genome curation. Besides comissioning sequencing and generation of genome data (e.g. optical mapping) and assembly generation, we develop bespoke software like gEVAL to identify and visualize genome assembly issues. This is used by our curators to resolve those issues through changes or additions to the assemblies, thereby vastly improving assembly accuracy.
We are evaluating and improving assemblies as members of the Darwin Tree of Life Project (see also here), the Vertebrate Genome Project, the Human Pangenome Project, the Genome Reference Consortium and others. We work closely with our consortium partners and other collaborators to ensure access to the latest data and analyses. Assembly improvements are submitted to INSDC on a regular schedule.
Our people
Core team
Dr Dominic Absolon
Senior Computer Biologist
Joanna Collins
Senior Computer Biologist
Sarah Pelan
Senior Computer Biologist
Camilla Santos
Senior Computer Biologist
James Torrance
Senior Bioinformatician
Previous core team members
William Chow
Senior Bioinformatician
Dr Kerstin Howe
Head of Production Genomics
Alan Tracey
Senior Computer Biologist
Dr Ying Yan
Former Senior Bioinformatician at the Sanger Institute
Associated research
Related groups
Partners
We work with the following groups
External
Genome Reference Consortium
The GRC aims to ensure that the human, mouse and zebrafish reference assemblies are biologically relevant by closing gaps, fixing errors and representing complex variation.
External
Ensembl
External
ZFIN
External
Vertebrate Genomes Project
The Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), a project of the G10K Consortium, aims to generate near error-free reference genome assemblies of all 66,000 extant vertebrate species.
External
Darwin Tree of Life Project
Reading the genomes of all life: a new platform for understanding our biodiversity