NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Genomics England are planning to share resources and expertise in order to advance genomic medicine in Australia and the UK, the organizations said today.
Under the agreement, Australia-based Garvan and Genomics England will work on making genomic information more accessible, meaningful, and usable, in particular by developing better ways to capture clinical information and integrate it with genomic data. In addition, they will build new genomics databases and establish ethical and legal frameworks around the use of genomic information. The partners will also design educational resources about clinical genomics for health professionals and the public.
Genomics England is running the 100,000 Genomes Project, which will sequence the genomes of 100,000 patients in the UK, focusing on cancer and rare diseases.
Three years ago, the Garvan Institute established the Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics, which it says is the largest sequencing center in the southern hemisphere.
"This partnership will allow us to share tools and approaches to harmonize datasets in Australia and the UK," said Mark Caulfield, chief scientist at Genomics England, in a statement. "Our aim is to support other countries in establishing similar programs to the 100,000 Genomes Project around the world."