O'Really?

So, I’ve just started a new job and moved home. There is loads to blog about but little time to do it. Before it’s too late, here are some first week impressions from a newbie starter at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus.

The Genome Campus owes its existence to the pharmacist Henry Wellcome, pictured over on the left. When he died in 1936, his legacy founded the Wellcome Trust, set up with money from his success as a pharmaceutical manufacturer and salesman. Today, the trust is the largest charity in the UK, funding innovative biomedical research and spending over £600 million each year. A large part of this legacy is being (and has been) spent on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, home to the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) (aka “The Sanger”) and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) an outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) based in Hinxton, twelve miles south of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire.

Cambridgeshire life: Good and Bad

It’s a bit of shock moving “Down South” from Manchester. Although still in the UK, sometimes it feels like a different country and culture to “Up North”. So I’ll have to resort to bullet points to cover the good and bad of life down here so far.

• Bad: Middle of nowhere Hinxton, Cambridgeshire is the middle of nowhere - there is nothing else here apart from the Red Lion. There is not much choice of shops, pubs, eateries, curry houses and restaurants to visit at lunchtime. The nearest train stations are miles away although there is an excellent bus service. However, there is no escaping the fact that Hinxton is a pretty inaccessible compared to being in the centre of a city. Still, at least London is a short train ride away from Cambridge.
• Bad: It’s Grim Down South Southern English prejudice often states that It’s Grim Up North, but this a topic of much contention. Northerners often think the converse is true, and have frequently pointed out that actually It’s Grim Down South, because life costs more but you get a lot less for your money. It all depends on what you mean by those weasel words less, more and grim of course, but that’s another story.
• Bad: Norman-no-mates Being the newboy-with-shiny-shoes, I can’t help wondering where all my friends, colleagues and frolleagues went. I knew I’d forgotten to pack something in the move. I feel all lost without my pals from the Information Management Group (IMG), dbkgroup and the MCISB back “home” in Manchester. But I wouldn’t have got this job without them, especially the opportunities provided by Carole Goble, Robert Stevens and Douglas Kell. The only consolation is while we are no longer colleagues at the University of Manchester, we’re still colleagues at the Invisible College.
• Good: Big, world class and international There’s something like ~300 people employed at the EBI and another ~800 or so at The Sanger. They come from all around the world, the ChEBI group for example currently has German, South African, Norwegian, Portugese, Chilean, Dutch and English nationalities amongst its number. So there is a lot to learn from the people around you, a high quality series of seminars to choose from and excellent support networks for various things, both technical and social.
• Good: High profile and expert When it comes to bioinformatics this place obviously has a high profile and there is no shortage of expertise to draw on locally, both on campus and in the surrounding Silicon Fen.
• Good: Canteen, gym, library etc There are some impressive facilities here, a well stocked library, extensive gym, sports facilities and huge canteen. They look after their employees too, little things like paying for removals when you relocate can make a big difference. There’s also tax benefits of working for a European organisation.
• Good: Beautiful countryside and campus The south cambridgeshire countryside is quite beautiful with its rolling Gog Magog Downs. It’s looking good at this time of year, with hundreds of colourful autumn trees populating the 55 acres of landscaped parkland on campus.
• Good: Best of both worlds The EBI is an academic institution (ebi.ac.uk) but it feels more industrial than academia in many ways. So you can (I hope) get the best of both worlds, academic and industrial.

Anyway, the Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) team of which I am now part are making me feel very wellcome here and I’m enjoying working on research and development of the ChEBI ontology [1]. It is interesting to wonder what a pharmacist like Henry would make of a freely available open source chemical ontology (describing many drugs) and the Genome Campus which bears his name.

Contemplating this question may require growing a long silken moustache which Henry Wellcome clearly excelled at, see picture top left.

References

1. Degtyarenko, K., de Matos, P., Ennis, M., Hastings, J., Zbinden, M., McNaught, A., Alcantara, R., Darsow, M., Guedj, M., & Ashburner, M. (2007). ChEBI: a database and ontology for chemical entities of biological interest Nucleic Acids Research, 36 (Database) DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkm791
2. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, JAMS (1991) It’s Grim Up North
   
3. More commetary on this post over at friendfeed.