Oxford Nanopore and the U.K. government will create the world's first real-time biosurveillance system to monitor infectious disease outbreaks and assess the threat of emerging pandemics.
In a statement, the U.K. government said that the partnership, consisting of the government, Genomics England, the UK Biobank, the National Health Service (NHS) England, and Oxford Nanopore, will work to establish the first real-time, pathogen-agnostic surveillance system using data from 10 to 30 hospitals in the NHS England system to detect, respond to, and monitor outbreaks and biological threats, prevent disease, and protect the public. The project is expected to begin in 2025.
Oxford Nanopore's long-read sequencing technology will be used in expanding the NHS England's Respiratory Metagenomics program, led by Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, with the initial pilot at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. The program uses samples from patients with severe respiratory infections and rapid genetic testing to match those patients with appropriate treatment within six hours.
Following the initial successful pilot, the program will then expand up to 30 NHS sites, according to the partners. The data generated in the program will be provided by the NHS to the U.K. Health and Security Agency, thereby enabling quicker decision-making on emerging diseases and bolstering national biosecurity, in line with the UK Biological Security Strategy, the U.K. statement noted.
