JULY
2004 BROADSHEET - A
Visit to the Sanger Institute
It is hard to grasp the scale of the Institute’s achievements and
operations. Named after
Cambridge
scientist Frederick Sanger, who has the rare distinction of having won two
Nobel Prizes, the Sanger Institute and its forerunner, the Laboratory of
Molecular Biology, is said to have won more Nobel Prizes than most countries.
Our
first speaker was the Sanger Institute’s Public Relations man, Don Powell,
an infectiously enthusiastic presenter, who is himself a scientist by
background. He described the
extraordinary efforts of the Institute to crack the genome code, a challenge
that became a race against time. Cracking
the code was originally meant to be a collaborative challenge, but some
Americans became competitive, because they wanted to patent the results.
Being a charitable body, the Sanger Institute puts the results of its
research into the public domain. Therefore,
the Institute increased its share of the original activity from one-sixth to a
massive one-third (more than all of the American activity) and made the
results public, to preclude anyone from patenting the results.
Don described how the Institute managed to unravel the DNA mystery
almost three years ahead of schedule. In
layman’s terms, the laying bare of a human genome equates to a computer
print-out of 750,000 sheets of A4 paper.
If it were physically unravelled, the human genome DNA would stretch
from
Cambridge
to
Milan
.
That
statistic lends a clue to one of the secrets of the Sanger Institute’s
success: its computer capability. The
mind-boggling capacity of the computer system was explained by Phil Butcher,
the head of IT, an engaging and entertaining speaker.
The system is huge not just because of the analytical work it does, but
also because of the storage capacity required.
For example, in 1994 storage amounted to about one terabyte.
Ten years later it is over 250 terabytes.
The computer system is structured in clusters and there is an automated
process for scheduling work, so as to optimise the system.
As we later saw on the tour, keeping this huge computer system cool is
a challenge. The data centre
pumps out heat equivalent to 20 electric fireplaces.
Because the Institute’s research is available free to the world, the
website receives around 1 million hits a day.
The
Institute is not resting on its laurels.
On the day of the visit, the Institute announced that it has sequenced
the pernicious MRSA superbug. But
The Sanger Institute is destined to be long remembered for its groundbreaking
work on the human genome. One
senses that this is something that the Institute recognises, as is
artistically demonstrated outside the reception centre, where the trunk of a
fallen tree trunk has been carved in the shape of a DNA helix.
The CETC is very grateful to The Sanger Institute for its hospitality
and its permission to tour its campus; and, in particular, to Don Powell and
Phil Butcher for giving up their valuable time to inform and amaze us.
The Club is very fortunate in benefiting from the sponsorship
of the following organisations:-
