Scientific Operations

Scientific Operations

Our Faculty work closely with our Scientific Operations teams which are responsible for data production pipelines at the Institute.

Scientific Operations (SciOps) at the Sanger Institute supports our scientists to carry out their research at a size and scale few can match:

• We deliver data and resources to enable life-changing science by translating ambitious experimental ideas into everyday reality.
• We organise our processes and pipelines into leading-edge industrial-scale technology platforms, run by highly-skilled professional staff.
• We support the delivery of the Institute’s scientific goals by understanding, refining and fulfilling our scientists’ technical requirements to deliver data for downstream computational analysis and interpretation.
• We carefully design and construct our processes to run robustly and with sufficient agility to change technical direction and adapt, develop and deploy new applications.

To achieve this, Scientific Operations comprises specialist teams organised around scientific technologies and expertise.  Our work is split across three main areas:

Sequencing Operations – handling and extracting samples, delivering standard and bespoke sequencing for whole-genome, exome- or targeted regions on DNA and RNA, single-cell and in situ tissue sections from healthy, developing and diseased biological material. This includes pipeline research, technical development, and laboratory automation activities.

Cellular Operations – deriving, differentiating, editing, screening and imaging healthy and diseased human tissue and cancer-derived cell lines and organoids, enabling large-scale, antibody, drug and CRISPR mutagenesis screens, and spatial genomics analysis. Includes research and technical development activities.

Strategy and Delivery – facilitating the delivery of our activities through professional project and relationship management, quality assurance, executive business administration and large-scale sample receipt, storage, and management activities.