I’ve been working on a contract at the amazing Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for the last couple of months, a world-leading centre for the study of genomes – the set of chemical instruction for life.

It recently celebrated its latest phenomenal sequencing milestone: the Sanger Institute loves to celebrate zeroes, and held a barbecue for staff to mark its latest boundary breaking achievement. Director Prof Mike Stratton told us: “On our campus, zeroes are the stuff of dreams and fantasy; it’s the stuff that drives science forward.”

Mike reminded the scientists, some of the best brains in the world, that the Institute’s history has been recorded in zeroes, starting from six in 1994 – when the first million bases were produced – to 14 very significant zeroes today, which mark 100,000 GB of sequencing, and will ultimately take their scientific discoveries forward to help lead to a better understanding of disease and human health.

Staff were invited to design a T-shirt to mark the special occasion, and my design featuring a QR code for the Sanger Institute which I created was a joint winner, and printed on the front. I was thrilled when this week, one of their faculty leaders, a tremendous award-winning scientist, told me how much he liked it and had been complimented on it. I’ve promised to make him a personal one.

Naturally, the Sanger Institute attracts lots of national media interest in its work. This week BBC Look East came to film on the genome campus, and you can learn more about the Sanger Institute’s work by watching this 2 minute clip: