Awards to support genetics innovations

01 November 2010

Back in July 2009, we opened the Health Innovation Challenge Fund to stimulate the development of innovative healthcare products, technologies and interventions.

We have made the first awards and among those funded are two groups from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Dr Nigel Carter’s team received £10 million to improve the diagnosis of developmental disorders. They will build on the DECIPHER database -an online catalogue of genetic changes linked to symptoms - to create a more detailed resource and cheaper, more efficient diagnostic microarray tools for genetic testing. Meanwhile, Dr Peter Campbell and colleagues will use their £1.6m award to develop ways to identify DNA fragments from specific cancer tumours in a patient’s bloodstream. This could offer a way to monitor patient responses to treatment and to predict relapses.

Visit the Health Innovation Challenge Fund website for more information.

Image: Children playing. Credit: Anthea Sieveking, Wellcome Images.