NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Research leaders from the UK's University of Manchester and Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust plan to undertake large-scale research projects with partners in Beijing, the institute said today. The projects aim to spur genomic medicine research into a range of disorders, including cancer, inherited heart disorders, blindness, and others.
Under a new memorandum of collaboration, researchers in Manchester will work with scientists at Peking University Health Science Centre, or PUHSC.
The University of Manchester said today that the Manchester-Peking Alliance also will result in new training programs for genetic counselors, doctors, and diagnostic s researchers, and that the partners will exchange knowledge and use the others resources in joint projects.
PUHSC is the oldest medical school in China and it has eight affiliated hospitals, and the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust also includes eight hospitals.
"Working with PUHSC we will be able to conduct large clinical studies using a wider pool of data from our populations," Ian Jacobs, dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences at the University of Manchester, said in a statement.
The agreement comes just a week after the launch of the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, a joint effort between the university and the NHS Trust to partner to develop genetic tests and companion diagnostics and use these tools with sequencing in the treatment of patients through the UK National Health Service.