OGT Awarded €3 Million from Prestigious EU Clinical Research Grants

EUCLIDS (EU Life-threatening Infectious Disease Study), is a 5-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 to perform high-throughput genomic analysis for the study, including whole exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, methylation analysis and microRNA analysis.  OGT is part of an international consortium of 14 institutions in 6 countries, led by Professor Michael Levin at Imperial College, London.

As leaders in targeted sequencing, OGT has also been awarded €1.9 million to design sequence enrichment methods and compare sequencing platforms for the PATHSEEK project. PATHSEEK is a 3-year study led by Professor Judy Breuer at University College London, which will 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, strengthening its existing portfolio of clinical genomics products and services.

James Clough, Vice President Clinical and Genomic Solutions at OGT, said: “The EUCLIDS and PATHSEEK studies are prestigious, international studies, and we are proud to be involved in them.  We see the invitation to participate and the award of these grants as validation and recognition of the superior quality of our high-throughput genomic analysis capabilities and our exceptional data analysis expertise.

“Next generation sequencing is starting to play a major role in drug discovery and healthcare management.  It is exciting for OGT to be playing important roles within these EUCLIDS and PATHSEEK studies to discover new methods, at the molecular level, with which to tackle these difficult to treat diseases.”