A sequencing hub in Liverpool will expand to offer a one-stop shop for researchers across the North of England who need to read the DNA of patients quickly and cheaply. The problem is that people vary in their disease susceptibility and response to treatment. Understanding this variation requires sequencing specific genes in many patients, but older technology was too slow and expensive for routine use. New instruments can now sequence a human genome in weeks, making it practical to compare patients' DNA at scale. If this succeeds, the hub will help turn DNA sequence into knowledge that doctors can use to choose the most appropriate treatment for a particular patient—a shift known as personalised medicine. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, clinicians could tailor therapies based on an individual's genetic makeup. The hub will also provide training and cost-sharing programmes to help client groups make that translation from raw sequence to actionable insight. This is primarily an infrastructure and service project: it does not itself discover new genes, but it enables the discovery work of others across universities and hospitals in the region.
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DNA sequence has always been an important source of inspiration for advances in medical and clinical research. This culminated in the sequencing of the first human genome, a project that took 6-8 years and several billion pounds. As a result we were able to discover the number and identity of genes that defined the human form though it is taking much longer to work out how these genes interact. But we know that people vary from each other in their disease susceptibility or in the way that they respond to treatment. The current need is to understand the basis of this variation and to use it to understand more fully how to define the most appropriate treatment to particular patients presenting with a particular condition. This is called ?personalised medicine? and it is widely thought to be the best way of optimising treatment. Achieving this requires establishing the DNA sequence of particular genes in those patients, and this requires much more productive sequencing technologies. Fortunately, new instruments are now becoming available which can sequence a human in just a few weeks for approx #10-50,000. The Advanced Genomics Facility (AGF), located in Liverpool, is a leading UK centre of excellence and service provider for the new generation of sequencing technologies. We want to expand the capacity of the AGF to serve the research leaders in Universities and hospitals of the North of England by offering a one-stop shop that provides advice for all stages of the work. We shall also provide training and pump-prime cost-sharing programmes helping client groups to turn DNA sequence into knowledge.
Andrew Cossins (Co-Investigator)David Christopher Crossman (Co-Investigator)Munir Pirmohamed (Co-Investigator)Neil Hall (Principal Investigator)William Ollier (Co-Investigator)
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