Genomics England enters bioinformatics partnership with Illumina
pharmafile | February 11, 2016 | News story | Research and Development | Genomics england, Illumia
Genomics England has announced a new partnership with US-based sequencing specialist Illumina to develop a platform and knowledge base that will be used to improve and automate genome interpretation.
The tools will operate within Genomics England’s secure database to enable researchers and clinicians to access information and reports more readily, contributing to the 100,000 Genomes Project, which seeks to sequence 100,000 genetic codes from some 70,000 people, with the ultimate aim of creating a new ‘genomic’ medicines service for the National Health Service.
Illumina and Genomics England will collaborate to develop a set of informatics tools, which will support the delivery of genomic clinical and research services at a population scale to the NHS Genomic Medicine Centers and the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partners.
Illumina will develop interpretation and reporting tools for the purpose of delivering reports on all genomes sequenced through the 100,000 Genomes Project, while Genomics England will provide access to whole genome sequence and de-identified phenotypic data for the development of this suite of tools for personalised medicine.
The tools will be used to curate and manage the knowledge base of information generated over the course of the project, with a focus on rare disease and common cancers. Illumina and Genomics England have agreed to make available the clinical findings arising from the 100,000 Genomes Project to approved users of the tools developed through the collaboration.
Through the partnership, Genomics England will also gain access to Illumina’s other tools, NextBio and BaseSpace, for data access and genomic data management. Illumina will make available to Genomics England researchers and the GENE Consortium part of the 100,000 Genomes dataset as a pilot within NextBio® Clinical, which will enable cohort analysis of complex phenotypic and genotypic information from de-identified genomes.
“Our partnership with Genomics England will help change the way healthcare is practiced” says Jay Flatley, Illumina’s chief executive. “The development of our suite of technologies and platforms is critical to enabling physicians in the future to make educated diagnoses based on a patient’s genome which will lead to better health outcomes.”
Sir John Chisholm, executive chairman of Genomics England comments: “This agreement allows Genomics England to access Illumina’s bioinformatics knowledge and experience to support our ambitions of transforming patient care and research. We are both committed to patients benefiting from genomic analysis across the NHS and to supporting clinicians and researchers in finding new genomic insights. Illumina is our key sequencing partner and they are now able to also support us, alongside our other partners, in solving the challenges of delivering clinical reporting and knowledge curation at a national scale.”
Joel Levy
Related Content
Berg joins Genomics England project to sequence 100,000 genomes
Boston-based biopharmaceutical company Berg has announced it will join an industry collaboration with Genomics England, …
Big pharma teams with government on genomic research
Ten firms will partner up with Genomics England to develop new diagnostics and treatments for …
Genomes Project gains £300m UK funding boost
A new funding stream aimed at helping British scientists map human DNA code will ‘revolutionise …
