£15m Initiative Boosts Gene-Led Healthcare in Scotland

The Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow have formed a partneship with Illumina, a global leader in sequencing and genomics, in a £15 million project which is said to enable genetic decoding of a person for less than £750. The Scottish Genomes Partnership will install 15 HiSeq X sequencing instruments divided between two hubs within the Universities bringing capability to study genomes of both healthy and sick people on a large scale and faster than before. will lead to more personalised treatment and safer selection of drug therapies and a  better understanding of the causes of both rare and common diseases, opening the door to the development of new treatments.

The Partnership will initially focus on very rapid screening of cancer patients, diagnosing childhood illnesses, disorders of the central nervous system and population studies. Eventually, by utilising other Illumina systems, the technology could be used to study genomes from plants and livestock for agricultural research, an area at which Scotland excels, as well as examine infectious organisms such as bacteria and viruses.

The Universities will draw on the Medical Genomics leadership based at the University of Glasgow’s Wolfson Wohl Cancer Centre, a leading-edge translational research facility dedicated to cancer, and the expertise of Edinburgh Genomics, the UK’s largest university-based gene sequencing facility.

Professor Jonathan Seckl, Vice Principal (Research) at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Scotland is uniquely placed to make a significant contribution to the field of genomics medicine. It has well established and approved methods of linking electronic health records to medical research programmes, governed by NHS and academic regulations. Edinburgh is also home to the UK’s national supercomputer facility, which will provide the high performance data processing ability needed to analyse the vast volume of information that will be generated from this research.