Major MRC investment to underpin genetics and genomics research
13 May 2009
The MRC is pumping over £7 million into supporting fundamental genetics research by creating three high-throughput sequencing (HTS) hubs in Scotland, the North of England and the East of England.
The Medical Research Council is boosting the UK research community’s access to cutting-edge equipment for DNA sequencing by making a substantial investment in the latest technology. Three regional hubs have been given funding to purchase high-throughput sequencing machines that will enable the UK to retain its world-leading status in DNA research.
Although the fundamental science behind DNA sequencing has remained largely the same since Sanger’s original work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the 1970s, the technology of DNA sequencing is revolutionising the field. These hubs will provide MRC-funded technical support and bioinformatics expertise to allow academics to make the most of the equipment and expand the potential of these resources.
John Jeans, MRC Chief Operating Officer, said:
“This investment is key to retaining and enhancing the UK’s competitiveness. It makes plain the MRC’s commitment to supporting high quality basic research and exemplifies the responsiveness of MRC strategic investment to the needs of the research community.”
The hubs in Scotland, the North of England and the East of England will make high-throughput sequencing equipment available to all academics across the UK.
John Jeans added:
“Inviting regional applications has generated innovative partnerships between academic institutions, as well as engagement with industry, the NHS and Regional Genetics Services. This initiative will engender innovative ways of working and enable new and exciting discoveries. We hope the hubs will allow scientists to ask increasingly precise questions about diseases, and gather answers that were undreamt of only a decade ago.”
Professor John Todd, from the University of Cambridge and one of the three hub Principal Investigators, said:
“The development of even faster and less expensive ways of decoding genetic material and information, so called high throughput sequencing, is transforming our understanding of how organisms work, from bacteria to humans, and how certain diseases are strongly inherited. Only a few years ago, it took an international consortium many years of effort to produce a first draft of the human genome sequence, but now it will be possible for the proposed hub in Cambridge, the Eastern Sequence and Informatics Hub (EASIH), to re-sequence 100 human genomes in a year.”
Mark Blaxter, from the University of Edinburgh and Principal Investigator of the Scotland Hub, said:
“DNA sequencing lies at the heart of modern biology. Scotland has a strong record and leading expertise in high throughput DNA sequencing. This investment from the MRC will allow us to support and underpin world-leading genetics research across Scotland and beyond, working with MRC researchers investigating issues such as familial cancers, psychiatric disease and the genomics of pathogens such as E. coli, C. difficile and malaria.”
Professor Neil Hall, from the University of Liverpool and Principal Investigator of the North of England Hub, said:
“There is a pressing need to understand the basis of genetic variation and to use it to define the most appropriate treatment for each patient with a particular condition. This ‘personalised medicine’ will require establishing the DNA sequence of particular genes in those patients. Such research will benefit greatly from the new HTS hub in the North of England by allowing much more productive sequencing technologies to be made available across the research community.”
The MRC’s £7 million investment was made by its Strategy Board following a review of the available high-throughput sequencing facilities in the UK. Strategy Board called for proposals for regional hubs as the hub model is the best way to build on existing sequencing resources and expertise. The new MRC funding will help to create centres of excellence and provide sequencing services to the genetics and genomics research communities.
Notes
Details of the three hubs
Scotland: GenePool, the Scottish next-generation genomics facility: University of Edinburgh, University of Dundee, MRC Human Genetics Unit (Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine), University of Glasgow, University of Aberdeen, The Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh.
The Scottish Hub is based at the GenePool, the University of Edinburgh’s next generation sequencing and genomics facility. MRC funding will build on the existing capacity of the GenePool so that service can be delivered to the wide range of biomedical investigators in the Scottish research sector. The GenePool will deliver service to groups investigating the genetics of cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disorders and cancer, and support major research groups examining the genetics of early development and the pathology and epidemiology of infectious diseases. Importantly, the Scottish MRC Hub award will also seed the establishment, in the five partner Universities and centres, of research bioinformatics positions whose role will be to assist investigators in the analysis of the torrents of new data that will be produced.
North of England: University of Liverpool, University of Sheffield, University of Manchester and University of Lancaster.
Individuals vary from each other in their disease susceptibility or in the way that they respond to treatment. Fortunately, new instruments are now becoming available which can sequence a human in just a few weeks for approx £10-50,000. The North of England has substantial amounts of leading medical and clinical research based in major Universities and NHS Trusts, all of which would benefit greatly from access to second generation (2G) DNA sequencing technology, particularly in meeting the challenges of tumour sequencing, genetic susceptibility and personalised medicine. 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. The North of England hub will 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.
East of England: University of Cambridge, European Bioinformatics Institute, Babraham Institute, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project advances in genomic sequencing have led to a dramatic fall in time taken and cost to produce very large scale sequence-based datasets. Cambridge University has a long and productive history in both the development and application of DNA sequencing technologies. The creation of the Eastern Sequencing and Informatics Hub will enable researchers working in our region to utilise a crucial 21st-century research process in their studies. In collaboration with the nearby European Bioinformatics Institute, an international centre for sequence data analysis, the Hub will provide researchers with access to all the tools required to analyse these complicated datsets. The Hub, based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, has a research development and strategic aim to apply HTS to routine medical diagnostic uses, in particular in HLA typing in transplantation and cord blood stem cells, prenatal diagnosis, and re-sequencing of disease genes (e.g. BRCA genes) in collaboration with the National Blood Service and NHS Regional Clinical Genetics Services.
The MRC is actively engaged with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the investments they are making. The councils will undertake joint networking activities and BBSRC and MRC are investigating the potential of a joint studentship programme.
Press contact: 020 7637 6011
press.office@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
