Wellcome Genome Campus

As the leading hub of genomic science in Europe, the campus provides a range of facilities and services to support academic research, and businesses that operate in the genomics and biodata market. Its facilities include:

• 350+ seminars, lectures and training courses a year (free and paid for) to help educate staff and keep their skills current.
• A state-of-the-art conference centre that attracts thousands of visitors every year.
• Connecting Science is a group of experts who help the wider public, schools and colleges to learn about and explore genomic science and its impact on research, health and society.
• A number of cafes and restaurants across the site provide spaces or eating out, informal meetings, relaxing and working.
• A 15 acre Wetlands Nature Reserve to enjoy and relax in all year around.
• Hinxton Hall- a beautiful historical setting for conference hosts, VIP events and meetings.
• A modern gymnasium and an all-weather tennis court.
• A library with an extensive range of online journals and databases accessible to all staff on site.

At the time of its official opening by the Princess Royal in 1994, the Wellcome Genome Campus was already home to the Wellcome Sanger Institute (then called the Sanger Centre), the Medical Research Council’s Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI).

Wellcome funded the establishment of the Sanger Centre in 1993 and chose Hinxton as the home for its new genome research institute. Shortly after, EMBL-EBI located on the same site, and the two institutes formed a natural fit, consolidating expertise, facilities and knowledge in one place and enabling both to contribute a major role in the Human Genome Project – a global collaboration to sequence the first ‘reference’ human genome.

One third of the human genome was sequenced for the first time at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and the precious data was stored and shared through EMBL-EBI. This was the largest single contribution of any centre to the Human Genome Project, making the Campus and its collaborations uniquely important in the history of genomics.

Since the announcement of the completion of the draft human genome in 2000, and final completion in 2003, rapid progress in sequencing technology has enabled new and exciting areas of Science to be opened up for exploration. At its opening in 1994, the Campus housed approximately 400 employees. This has grown to over 2,600 people employed at the Wellcome Genome Campus today, making the Campus a densely concentrated and globally significant cluster for biodata and genomics expertise.

The first recorded owner of the estate, in 1506, was the college of Michaelhouse in Cambridge but it wasn’t until the early eighteenth century that the first building – a modest hunting and fishing lodge – was erected by Captain Joseph Richardson of Horseheath. It became a gentleman’s retreat with well-stocked trout ponds and fields full of partridge.

The current Hall was built by John Bromwell Jones in 1748 and remains today as the central three-storey block on the Campus. Opposite the house were stables, a kitchen garden and an orchard, all of which still exist, albeit in altered form.

By 1800 ownership of the Hall and estate had passed to the Green family, who remained until 1920, when the Hall was sold to the Robinsons. During the Second World War, the Hall was used for billeting American soldiers, stationed at the local airbase at Duxford.

In 1953 the Hall and grounds were sold to Tube Investments Plc for us as research laboratories, which closed in the late 1980s. The site remained under their ownership until it was sold to Genome Research Limited in 1992.

The Wellcome Trust established the Sanger Centre in 1992 to undertake the most ambitious project ever attempted in biology, sequencing the human genome. The new facility developed laboratory infrastructure, robotics, team working and computational approaches on a scale unprecedented in life sciences.

In 2000, the first draft of the human genome was announced with the Sanger Centre championing open access to the data and making the largest contribution to the global collaborative endeavour. Genomes began to convert biology into big data science. The subsequently renamed Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute established long term research programmes to explore and apply genome sequences.

View Sanger's history timeline