NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Oxford Gene Technology today announced it has been awarded two grants totaling €3 million ($3.6 million) to provide genomic analysis and commercialization services for two international studies.
In one study, called EUCLIDS (EU Life-threatening Infectious Disease Study), OGT will use a five-year, €1.1 million grant to perform high-throughput genomic analysis for the identification of genomic variants that determine susceptibility and severity of life-threatening bacterial infections in children. These include meningococcal and pneumococcal cohorts.
OGT's work for the study includes whole-exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, methylation analysis, and microRNA analysis.
Michael Levin, a professor of pediatrics and international child health and director of the Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine at Imperial College, is leading EUCLIDS. OGT is part of an international consortium of 14 institutions in six countries participating in the study.
The company also received a three-year €1.9 million grant to design sequence enrichment methods and compare sequencing platforms for the Pathseek study. Led by Judy Breuer, a professor in the department of infection at University College London, Pathseek aims to demonstrate the use of next-generation sequencing in clinical microbiology laboratories; to enable the detection of pathogens directly from clinical samples; and to enable the detection of drug-resistant mutations.
The study will focus on infections with unmet clinical need or which pose a global risk including HIV, mycobacterium tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, and influenza A. Pathseek will also research two host pharmacogenomic biomarkers that predict response to therapies for HCV and HIV.
OGT said it has the rights to commercialize the final assay enrichment and sequencing panels for sale to clinical microbiology labs.