NEW YORK – The West German Genome Center said this week that it has received a two-year €8.3 million ($9.0 million) funding package from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
In a statement, the WGGC said it plans to use the funding "to contribute to the strong position of the WGGC and to develop a sustainable structure."
WGGC was one of four such sequencing centers created with €14 million in total funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2018. It has core facilities at the University of Cologne, University of Bonn, and Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, which are now joined by a fourth member, RWTH Aachen University.
"The West German Genome Center, with scientists from Bonn, Düsseldorf, Cologne, and now Aachen, has gained an international reputation for using genetic analysis to individually adapt treatment options to the needs of patients," Ina Brandes, North Rhine-Westphalia's minister of science, said in a statement. "The project shows that North Rhine-Westphalia as a scientific location is particularly successful when scientists from various universities pool their expertise and work together on a project."