Earlham Institute (EI, formerly The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC)) is a life science research institute located at the Norwich Research Park (NRP),

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. EI's research is focused on exploring living systems by applying computational science and biotechnology to answer ambitious biological questions and generate enabling resources.

History

The institute was established by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in partnership with East of England Development Agency (EEDA),

Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council is the top-tier local government authority for Norfolk, England. Its headquarters are based in the city of Norwich. Below it there are 7 second-tier local government district councils: Breckland District, Broadland Distr ...

Norwich City Council Norwich City Council is the city council for the city of Norwich, Norfolk, England. It consists of 39 councillors, elected to represent 13 wards, each with three councillors. It is currently under Labour control and led by Alan Waters. It for ...

, South Norfolk Council and the Greater Norwich Development Partnership. It cost £13.5 million, and was built by

Morgan Sindall Morgan Sindall Group plc is a leading British Construction & Regeneration group, headquartered in London employing around 6,700 employees and operating in the public, regulated and private sectors. It reports through six divisions of Constructio ...

. It was officially opened on 3 July 2009 by

John Sulston Sir John Edward Sulston (27 March 1942 – 6 March 2018) was a British biologist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the cell lineage and genome of the worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' in 2002 with ...

, winner of the 2002

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

, and former Director of the

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is located on the Wellcome G ...

, another genomics research institution. In early June 2011, it unveiled a supercomputer on its site that has the most powerful processor in the world that runs

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used commercial open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. Red Hat published the first non-beta rele ...

, with six terabytes of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

. It was installed to crack the structure of the

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

genome, which is five times larger than the human genome. In June 2016, Earlham Institute completed a rebranding project which saw the name transition from The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) to Earlham Institute (EI).

Structure

It is situated on the Norwich Research Park, to the west of Norwich on the former A47
B1108
, and adjacent to the west of the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

, next to the

River Yare The River Yare is a river in the English county of Norfolk. In its lower reaches it is one of the principal navigable waterways of The Broads and connects with the rest of the network. The river rises south of Dereham to the west to the vil ...

Function

The goal of this institute is to be at the forefront of data intensive science in biology, to be a leader in bioinformatics innovation and the application of genome technology and to enable bioscience through dissemination of the data and technology produced in the institute and in collaboration with external scientists worldwide. Project specialisms include wheat and

ryegrass ''Lolium'' is a genus of tufted grasses in the bluegrass subfamily (Pooideae). It is often called ryegrass, but this term is sometimes used to refer to grasses in other genera. They are characterized by bunch-like growth habits. ''Lolium'' i ...

, but the wider research carried out includes vertebrate, evolutionary, environment, and regulatory genomics as well as data infrastructure and software development to support the international bioscience community. EI makes its research open access where possible.

Directors

Earlham Institute has been directed by: * Prof Jane Rogers from July 2009 to December 2012; * Prof Mario Caccamo from January 2013 to July 2015; * Prof Dylan Edwards from August 2015 (Interim Director) * Prof Neil Hall from April 2016 (Current Director)

Communicating science

One of the responsibilities of EI is to communicate the science it undertakes to a range of audiences, such as the international scientific community, the general public, school children, and students. It runs various programmes throughout the year to deliver this responsibility, as well as producing editorial features to explain the research it carries out.

Facilities

EI has a state-of-the-art scientific training facility which helps support the delivery of workshops and training courses to support the international bioscience community.

Sequencing platforms

EI is equipped with next-generation sequencing and genomics platforms for high-throughput data generation for research projects. EI historically has been an early adopter of new technologies for its scientific research, but also makes these available to the UK bioscience community through it
National Capability in Genomics
* Illuina NovaSeq * Illumina HiSeq 2500 * Illumina MiSeq * Illumina iSeq100 * PacBio Sequel * PacBio Sequel II * Oxford Nanopore MinION * Oxford Nanopore GridION * 10X Chromium

Pandemic support

Scientists at Earlham Institute and Quadram Institute are helping to develop a new tool to translate the dynamic microbiome/body communication. The method would be useful to researchers seeking to learn how microbes impact safety, the modifications contributing to illness, and pointing to new targets for medicines.

References

External links

* {{authority control Biotechnology in the United Kingdom Biotechnology organizations Bioinformatics organizations Buildings and structures completed in 2009 Buildings and structures in Norwich Genetics in the United Kingdom Genetics or genomics research institutions Government agencies established in 2009 Organisations based in Norwich Research institutes in Norfolk South Norfolk 2009 establishments in England Research institutes established in 2009