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Southampton joins £300 million initiative to transform cancer treatment

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust has been named as one of 11 centres involved in a national genome project worth £300 million.

The project, which was launched by Prime Minister David Cameron earlier this year, is set to transform diagnosis and treatment for patients with cancer and rare diseases.

According to ITV, The Wessex NHS Genomic Medicine Centre, led by UHS with hospital partners across the region and the University of Southampton, will help to deliver the Department of Health and NHS England’s 100,000 Genomes Project.

It is anticipated that around 75,000 people will be involved and recruitment to the project will begin from February 2015.

Professor Karen Temple, Clinical Geneticist at UHS said: “The results will then be sent back to the Southampton centre for clinicians to help make diagnostic and treatment decisions.

“This project has the potential to transform the future of healthcare and we are delighted many patients from across the south can be involved and will benefit from it.

“All the teams and individuals involved are ready to take on the big task of understanding what a genome can tell us and introducing genomes into clinical practice.

“It will improve the prediction and prevention of disease, enable new and more precise diagnostic tests and allow personalisation of drugs and other treatments to specific genetic variants.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .