NHS England is to set up 11 Genomics Medicine Centres at hospitals in Birmingham, Cambridge, Exeter, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and Southampton.
The centres will gather DNA samples to help devise targeted treatments, initially for five common cancers – breast, bowel, ovarian, lung and CLL leukaemia – and 110 inherited conditions. It is hoped that the programme will help in the development of new drugs and diagnostic tests, heralding a new era of personalised medicine.
The 11 centres are part of the first wave in a future network of more than 100 centres that will recruit tens of thousands of patients with cancer and rare genetic disorders between 2015 and 2018.