Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) next-generation sequencing service team has been awarded two EU-funded clinical research grants worth €3 million (approximately $3.6 million). OGT will be providing genomic analysis and commercialization services for two international studies, EUCLIDS and PATHSEEK.
EUCLIDS (EU Life-threatening Infectious Disease Study), is a five-year, large-scale study to identify genomic variants that determine susceptibility to and severity of life-threatening bacterial infections in children, including meningococcal and pneumococcal cohorts. OGT has been awarded a grant of €1.1 million (approximately $1.3 million) to perform high-throughput genomic analysis for the study including whole-exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, methylation analysis, and microRNA analysis.
OGT has also been awarded €1.9 million (approximately $2.3 million) to design sequence-enrichment methods and compare sequencing platforms for the PATHSEEK project. PATHSEEK is a three-year study led by Professor Judy Breuer at University College London, the goal of which is to demonstrate the potential of next-generation sequencing technologies in clinical microbiology labs, to enable the detection of pathogens directly from clinical samples and the early detection of drug-resistant mutations.
The study will look at infections with clear unmet clinical need or which pose a global risk factor including HIV, mycobacterium tuberculosis, hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV), and influenza A. PATHSEEK will also investigate two host pharmacogenomics biomarkers which predict response to therapy for HCV and HIV. OGT have the rights to commercialise the final assay enrichment and sequencing panels for sale to clinical microbiology labs.