NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Qatar's Sidra Medical and Research Center today announced an agreement with WuXi NextCode to develop bioinformatics programs.
Under the terms of the flexible, multi-year agreement, Sidra has selected NextCode as the informatics platform for its large-scale genomics projects, and will develop customized applications to support the research needs of several health and research programs currently underway in Qatar, including the Qatar Genome Project (QGP). The partners said they have already begun on a whole-genome pilot study of the Qatari population with a sample size of 3,000.
The partnership with WuXi NextCode gives Sidra "a fully integrated and truly scalable bioinformatics system for ramping up our sequencing effort," and will enable it to "build a global standard database and tools using population genomic and medical data to benefit research and clinical care," Francesco Marincola, Sidra's Chief Research Officer, said in a statement. "Our work on the QGP has the potential to develop applications that will take our research and expertise beyond Qatar's borders," Marincola added.
Nextcode COO Hannes Smarason added that the firm has worked on similar projects in its work in Iceland and with Genomics England.
Doha, Qatar-based Sidra is a new hospital, research, and educational institution that includes a high-throughput genomics center.
In June, China's Fudan University partnered with NextCode on genomic analysis. Last month, the school's children's hospital partnered with NextCode on rare disease diagnostics.