Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the company delivering a new generation of nanopore-based molecular sensing technology, today announces its participation in a cohort study led by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) BioResource to further explore human health and disease.

The study would involve using Oxford Nanopore’s platform to sequence up to 22,000 samples to further research in the initial areas of psychiatric, common and rare disease. Data would be made available to the scientific community through a managed access database hosted by the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) upon completion.

The NIHR BioResource is part of the NIHR and hosted by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) in partnership with the University of Cambridge and aligns with the UK government’s strategy to extend the UK’s leadership in genomic healthcare and research. This study will operate through a partnership between CUH and the University of Cambridge, with an additional partnership with King’s College London.

Researchers will use Oxford Nanopore’s high-throughput sequencing devices, the PromethION 48, which are uniquely designed to rapidly sequence large numbers of samples with high accuracy, delivering scalability for large projects.

The study is expected to start this year and complete in 2025.