Oxford Nanopore Technologies plans to move into new digs next month, almost doubling the space that it currently occupies.
On July 23, the nanopore DNA sequencing technology company is scheduled to move from its current location, the Begbroke Science Park just north of Oxford, where it leases 6,000 square feet, into a new building in the Oxford Science Park, about four miles southeast of Oxford.
It will occupy almost 11,000 square feet in the Edmund Cartwright Building, which will be formally opened on July 8 by Lord Drayson, the UK's minister for Science and Innovation.
"Various things have triggered the move, which … we have been planning for some time," a company spokeswoman told In Sequence last week. For example, the firm's staff has grown from 25 in early 2008 to more than 60 to date, including informaticians, scientists, and engineers. Also, "the new facility combines three floors of office and lab space within our own building, giving us room to integrate the multidisciplinary functions and also further scope to grow in the future," she said.
Oxford Nanopore has been working on commercializing a protein nanopore sequencing technology, based on research by Hagan Bayley, a professor of chemistry at Oxford (see In Sequence 2/24/2009). In January, the company received an $18 million investment from Illumina.
The Oxford Science Park, a joint venture between the University of Oxford's Magdalen College and financial services group Prudential, houses more than 60 companies, according to its website, more than 40 percent of them life science firms, and about a third computer hardware or software companies.