NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – China's BGI and the University of Washington have agreed to collaborate on the development of technology to advance precision medicine, BGI said this week.
As part of the agreement, the organizations will develop a joint Seattle-Shenzhen institute.
In addition, the organizations plan to apply next-generation sequencing technology in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of common and rare diseases, as well as use NGS for population genetics. The agreement also includes data collection, storage, and international sharing and analysis.
"Through our partnership, efforts and resources will be joined to produce more innovative healthcare solutions in precision medicine that will lead to more effective treatments available to patients," Yiwu He, BGI's global head of research and development, said in a statement.
Jay Shendure, a professor of genome sciences at UW, said that the collaboration would help chart "the future of genomics research, especially in accelerating the application of new sequencing technologies to human health."