Annual Review 2010 Wellcome Trust Annual Review 1 October 2009–30 September 2010 September 2009–30 October Annual1 Review Trust Wellcome Celebrating Highlights of the Wellcome Trust’s work in 2010 – a year that saw us celebrating a decade of discovery since the draft sequence of the human genome was unveiled. a decade Wellcome Trust We are a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the ofof discoverydiscovery medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests. www.wellcome.ac.uk Wellcome Trust Gibbs Building 215 Euston Road London NW1 2BE, UK T +44 (0)20 7611 8888 F +44 (0)20 7611 8545 E [email protected] www.wellcome.ac.uk The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered in England and Wales, no. 210183. Its sole trustee is The Wellcome Trust Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, no. 2711000 (whose registered office is at 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK). FI-4936/9K/01-2011/AF We are grateful to the many researchers and members of ISBN 978 1 84129 089 8 Vision Wellcome Trust staff who helped to produce this volume, The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered in England everyone who agreed to be reviewed in this issue, and To achieve extraordinary improvements in and Wales, no. 210183. Its sole trustee is The Wellcome everyone who supplied images or gave us permission for Trust Limited, a company registered in England and human and animal health. their images to be used. Wales, no. 2711000 (whose registered office is at 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK). Editor Mission Dr Giles Newton First published by the Wellcome Trust, 2011. 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Richard Hynes E [email protected] Anne Johnson www.wellcome.ac.uk/publications Roderick Kent Eliza Manningham-Buller Peter Smith As at January 2011 Contents Director’s statement 2 Supporting outstanding researchers 4 Accelerating the application of research 8 Exploring medicine in historical and cultural contexts 12 Maximising the health benefits of genetics and genomics 16 Understanding the brain 22 Combating infectious disease 28 Investigating development, ageing and chronic disease 34 Connecting environment, nutrition and health 38 Investment and expenditure 42 Operational excellence 44 Communications 46 Advisory committees 2009/10 48 Annual Review 2010 | 1 Director’s statement This year, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the first draft of the human genome and, with the publication of our new Strategic Plan, looked forward to the decade ahead. In 2000, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton announced the understanding of the links between genes and health. completion of the draft sequence of the human genome. Hence, this year, we launched major projects to study the This was a milestone in biology and medicine. The genomes of 10 000 people in the UK (UK10K) and Human Genome Project brought together thousands of thousands of people in Africa (the Human Heredity and scientists from six countries to master the technical Health in Africa Project, or H3 Africa). The UK10K project challenge of lining up 3 billion bases of DNA into the aims to apply whole genome sequencing to find many genome sequence. We took the lead in ensuring that all uncommon or rare genetic variants that are important in of these data were freely available on the internet. This human disease. H3 Africa, a partnership with the US approach has enabled scientists worldwide to use the National Institutes of Health to fund scientists working in reference sequence in their studies of almost every aspect Africa, will help us to understand how genes and the of human biology. environment interact in the development of diseases such as cancer, heart disease and malaria. A decade later, we have seen remarkable progress in deciphering and understanding the content of the We take a long-term view to funding research, allowing genome. We are learning how our genome compares the researchers that we support to tackle difficult and with those of other species, how genes are expressed ambitious questions. This is evident in our new Strategic and regulated, and about the functions of the RNA Plan for 2010–20: Extraordinary Opportunities, which was and proteins that it encodes. Equally important are launched in February 2010. The Plan set outs our three collaborations between geneticists and clinicians that are areas of focus for the next decade: supporting outstanding discovering how inherited and acquired differences in researchers, accelerating the application of research, and DNA sequence influence human variation in health and exploring medicine in historical and cultural contexts. It disease. Leading the way in this latter field of research are also poses five research challenges: maximising the health genome-wide association studies – notably the Wellcome benefits of genetics and genomics; understanding the Trust Case Control Consortium – that are uncovering the brain; combating infectious diseases; investigating myriad genetic variants that influence our susceptibility development, ageing and chronic disease; and connecting to many common diseases. Such research would not be environment, nutrition and health. Each challenge has possible without the remarkable technological many research questions and brings together the many innovations that have enabled a phenomenal increase in different activities of the Trust – including research in our ability to sequence DNA. The first genome took ten biology and medicine, the translation of research into years to produce and cost approximately £700 million; healthcare products, public engagement, the history of today, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute can sequence medicine and the ethics of research. the equivalent of two genomes each day at a fraction of the cost. There is every expectation that the price of How can we ensure that we make progress as effectively sequencing will continue to reduce dramatically as as possible in these challenges? The key is to fund the technology advances. best researchers, so we have launched a new scheme – Wellcome Trust Investigator Awards – that extends the Despite this progress, there is still much to discover. We ethos of our highly successful fellowship schemes to still do not know the full extent of the variation in the researchers who are in established posts. human genome, some of which is common and found in many millions of individuals, and some of which is rare We also want to make sure that researchers have the best and found in only a tiny fraction of the world’s population. facilities and equipment. The flagship new project for UK And we are only a small part of the way towards an science is the UK Centre for Medical Research and 2 | Annual Review 2010 Innovation (UKCMRI) in London, which is expected to based on the discovery of mutations in a growth factor open in 2015.