The UK Government recently announced a new public-private collaboration todevelopthe world’s first early warning system for pandemic diseases.
The new partnership involves the NHS, Oxford Nanopore, Genomics England, and UK Biobank.
The system can identify individual nucleotides in real-time, with 99 percent accuracy under “ideal” conditions.
Oxford Nanopore’s methods can rapidlydiagnosevarious cancers and rare and infectious diseases.
“We cannot let history repeat itself,” Streeting said.
This new real-time sequencing technology has already been successful in tests at St Thomas' Hospital.
It will now roll out to 10 to 30 NHS sites across the UK.
Oxford Nanopore will work with disease data provided by Genomics England to enhance genomic surveillance and sequencing.
Meanwhile, UK Biobank will continue to share its data with Oxford Nanopore and the government.
