A national research institute established in Norwich (UK) in July 2009 by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), in partnership with the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and Norfolk Local Authorities (NLA). TGAC’s mission is to develop the latest sequencing technologies and implement bioinformatics pipelines to drive scientific discovery and to advance the understanding of the complex biological processes. It also promotes genome-based applications to underpin practical solutions to major challenges in areas such as climate change, food security, healthier ageing, and the control of infectious diseases.

TGAC complements other sequencing centres in Europe by focusing on developing solutions to advance research in plant, animals and non-medical microbes. With a platform of seven NGS instruments, TGAC has the capacity to implement large-scale projects that require significant sequencing and/or bioinformatics work (e.g. de novo sequencing, annotation and variant analysis). The Centre is also an enabler for the implementation of pilot projects with the view of providing supporting material for large grant applications. TGAC designs algorithms and develops software tools that can be used by the scientific community. To facilitate access to these tools and drive the application of genomics TGAC provides training in bioinformatics and computational biology to academia and industry.

TGAC is located on the Norwich Research Park; the park hosts two other BBSRC institutes, the John Innes Centre (JIC) and the Institute for Food Research (IFR), as well as The Sainsbury’s Laboratory (TSL), the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Norwich and Norfolk University hospital. Dr Mario Caccamo is the Head of Bioinformatics at The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC). His research interests focus on the development of efficient algorithms and software tools for the assembly, analysis and annotation of genomic sequences for large eukaryotes genomes.

Selected publications:
Berriman M, Haas BJ, LoVerde PT et. al. (2009) 'The genome of the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni' Nature 460, 352-358.
Bentley DR, Balasubramanian S, Swerdlow HP et. al. (2008) ‘Accurate whole human genome sequencing using reversible terminator chemistry’ Nature 456, 53-59.
Wilhelm BT, Marguerat S, Watt S et. al. (2008) ‘Dynamic repertoire of a eukaryotic transcriptome surveyed at single-nucleotide resolution’ Nature 453,1239-1243.
Quintana FJ, Basso AS, Iglesias AH, Korn T, Farez MF, Bettelli E, Caccamo M, Oukka M, Weiner HL "Control of T:reg: and T:H:17 cell differentiation by the aryl hydrocarbon receptor." Nature 453, 65 - 71 (May 2008)
Stein C, Caccamo M, Laird G, Leptin M. “Conservation and divergence of gene families encoding components of innate immune response systems in zebrafish. - Genome Biology 2007, Nov 27;8(11):R251