Clinical and genomic data company Nashville Biosciences LLC (NashBio) and global DNA sequencing company Illumina Inc. today announced that 250,000 whole genomes have been sequenced for the Alliance for Genomic Discovery (AGD) initiative.
Insights from the AGD database are being leveraged to accelerate drug target discovery, therapeutic research and clinical development.
Todd Christian is Senior Vice President of Services, Arrays, and Genomic Access at Illumina.
Christian said: “AGD is delivering on its promise of unlocking new discoveries, and we’re eager to build on this success with the addition of multiomic measurements to drive advances in therapeutic development.
“The rapid achievement of this major milestone demonstrates the value of our strategic collaborations across the ecosystem to advance unprecedented progress in biologic and therapeutic discovery.”
The resulting AGD dataset is being made available to the alliance’s eight biopharma members using Illumina Connected Analytics as a shared research tool and data platform.
De-identified DNA samples were provided by NashBio from VUMC’s BioVU biobank, and sequenced by deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, using Illumina’s complete, end-to-end sequencing workflow including the DRAGEN analysis pipeline, and integrated with de-identified longitudinal clinical phenotype data derived from VUMC’s electronic health record data.
Kári Stefánsson, CEO of deCODE genetics, said: “The AGD dataset is unique for its diversity and depth and has already proven its value by empowering us to make important discoveries we would not have made without it.”
The data generated through AGD will provide a dynamic research platform for years to come and has already yielded initial novel target discoveries and validations by biopharma company members across autoimmune, liver fibrotic and metabolic diseases.
The diversity of data types, demographics, ancestries and diseases represented in the dataset makes it a valuable resource for life sciences exploration.
In the next phase of AGD, its members plan to further expand the breadth, depth and diversity of the dataset by adding multiomic layers.
