The Wellcome Sanger Institute has profiled Vanessa Burns, a fourth-year PhD student researching how genetic variants contribute to rare disease and how genetic data can improve clinical diagnosis.
In addition to her career in genomics, Vanessa has been a volunteer writer for BioNews for the past three years. She won second prize in the inaugural Marcus Pembrey BioNews Writing Competition, where she exploring the impact that CRISPR-based genome editing will have over the next 25 years (see BioNews 1255).
Vanessa's PhD, in Professor Matthew Hurles' lab, has focused on saturation genome editing, a CRISPR-based method that allows researchers to test thousands of genetic variants. Her work has examined variants in non-coding regions of genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, identifying changes that may affect protein production. She has also worked on the SMC1A gene, which is associated with two neurodevelopmental conditions.
Read more about Vanessa in the Wellcome Sanger Institue blog here.
Registration for the second BioNews Writing Prize event in London on the evening of 7 October 2026 is now open. It's a free evening event and, if you're in London, you are very welcome to attend. Please do register via the link – we'd love to see you there.