World’s Largest Gene Sequencing Project Completed By UK Researchers

World’s Largest Gene Sequencing Project Completed By UK Researchers

In a remarkable achievement, Genomics England Researchers in partnership with NHS England have successfully completed sequencing 100,000 Human Genomes. This is the World’s Largest Gene Sequencing Project in healthcare ever executed and has open new doors for a better understanding of rare & genetic diseases for which we do not have a cure yet.

Earlier in 2012, Ex-Prime Minister David Cameron announced the launch of the 100,000

Genomes Project, with a target to make the UK, world leader in research in 5 years of time from then. On Wednesday the project was announced to have been successfully completed and are aiming for more million to go.

In this historic project that nobody had ever tried before, witnessed the participation of numerous families & patients with rare genetic disorders and Cancer. Via this project, thousands of families received an effective diagnosis for the first time. Potential findings in up to half of the cancer patients were tabulated, leading to an opportunity for a clinical trial or a targeted therapy.

This humongous initiative was accomplished by Genomics England & NHS England by creating 13 NHS Genomic Medicine Centres to run the project. Illumina further assisted

by providing a state-of-the-art sequencing center to run the genome sequencing.

Jessica is one of the first children to receive a diagnosis from the 100,000 Genomes Project. Watch her family share their story below on how the treatment helped them change their world.

Precisely 85,000 participants, 1,500 NHS staff and over 3,000 researchers were a part of the project, Genomics England and NHS have expressed their extreme gratefulness to them. Also, the National Institute for Health Research and the UK Government played a very important role in the successful execution of this project.

In the initial stages of the project, the team had to face a lot of hurdles. The absence of technology to deliver genomic medicine, lack of effective bioinformatics pipeline to ensure processing at a large scale all were adding to the trouble to kick-start the project. In short, the entire infrastructure was set up from scratch.

The UK has now become the first nation in the world, to use whole-genome sequencing at a large scale in direct healthcare. As an outcome of the project, NHS Genomic Medicine Service has been established which will provide access to genomic testing to patients across NHS from 2019. Well, they are not going to end here. In oct, 2018 the U.K. Govt announced new plans of sequencing 1 million genomes over the next five years.