A talk on a pioneering genetics project being led in the Thames Valley by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust is now available to view online.
Director of the Oxford NHS Genomic Medicine Centre and Associate Professor of Molecular Diagnostics for the University of Oxford’s Department of Oncology Anna Schuh gave the talk on the national 100,000 Genomes Project at the Trust’s Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.
Eligible patients with rare diseases and cancers are being invited to provide health data and blood and tissue samples for whole genome sequencing, where a complete set of a person’s genes is decoded.
The project will aid research, improve diagnosis and ultimately clinical outcomes so NHS patients can receive care based on cutting edge scientific techniques.
This national programme – the largest of its kind in the world – was launched by the Prime Minister in 2012 and will help provide better diagnosis and treatment tailored to individual illnesses for some patients.
The Trust was designated a Genomic Medicine Centre by NHS England in December 2014 to carry out the project.
Patients will be referred into the programme by the doctor looking after them. The programme is voluntary and patients will be considered only after they have given written consent.
The talk was part of an ongoing monthly series of events about research supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, a collaboration between the Trust and the University of Oxford.