Head of Society and Ethics Research at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

Professor Anna Middleton is Head of Society and Ethics Research at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge. Anna is an established leader in the genetic counselling profession internationally and is co-founder of the World Congress on Genetic Counselling in Cambridge. She has written genetic counselling policy as Chair of the Association of Genetic Nurses and Counsellors and previous Vice-Chair of the Genetic Counsellor Registration Board. She has also co-written the core curriculum for STP MSc Genomic Counselling and designed and co-led two modules of the University of Cambridge MSt Genomic Medicine; she co-created the Wellcome’s Genomic Practice for Genetic Counsellors course.

Anna is on the World Economic Forum's Biotechnology council and has written position statements as part of this; chaired the oversight committee for Genomics England and Sciencewise's work on the Social Contract between patients and the NHS; selected as the Genomics and Ethics expert on the Secretary of State for Health's Topol review on the future of the NHS with respect to genomics, robotics and AI.

Having worked at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Connecting Science at Wellcome Genome Campus since 2010, Anna came to this role having led research as Chief and Principal investigator at Cardiff University for 4 years and prior to this spent 10 years working in the NHS as a practicing genetic counsellor.