Exploiting NHS Genomic Data

In partnership with the All Wales Medical Genomics Service (AWMGS) and Genomics Partnership Wales, Wales Gene Park are contributing to the creation and development of a joint service and research genomics hub for Wales. It is our ambition that this will ensure Wales is an attractive place for NHS and commercial employees to work, aiding recruitment and retention of staff.

A joint Bioinformatics role, funded by the Wales Gene Park award from Health and Care Research Wales, is working within the NHS AWMGS bioinformatics team to enable cross organisation working. The post aims to ensure the NHS genomics infrastructure can be utilised for research, that the flow of knowledge between academia and clinical services can occur unhindered, and that NHS clinical genomic data can be used for research within the secure NHS network, where appropriate research ethics and approvals have been awarded.

Joint projects that mutually benefit both academic research and clinical diagnostic aspects of Bioinformatic work are being explored. Projects will be pursued that allow the development and maintenance of existing pipelines to work more efficiently and optimised to cater for both research and clinical applications; using the NHS network to work on confidential data within a secure network with a joint research and clinical perspective.

Fundamentally, working with Bioinformaticians within the NHS and Wales Gene Park, the joint position will develop and maintain bioinformatics workflows, support research and clinical outputs, and ensure robust and reproducible working analytical pipelines between research and clinical outputs.