# Wellcome - BGI - Digital China Health - CONVERGE

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Jeremy Farrar, Director Wellcome Trust:</span>](https://wellcome.org/press-release/wellcome-trust-invests-%C2%A327m-world-class-sequencing-facility-genomics-england-and) *<span style="font-weight: 400;">Understanding humanity’s genetic code is not only going to be fundamental to the medicine of the future, it is an essential part of medicine today. .. The Wellcome Trust has invested more than £1 billion in genome research that has built this understanding .. (and) will further </span>****exploit this knowledge****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> for medical advances that help patients, within a</span>*[ *<span style="font-weight: 400;">robust ethical framework</span>*](http://formosahut.com/forum/index.php?id=2918)*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> that relies on their informed consent.</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Wellcome Genome Campus:</span>](https://www.wellcomegenomecampus.org/aboutus/congenica/) *<span style="font-weight: 400;">Congenica is a digital health company enabling genomic medicine with the world’s leading clinical decision support platform for accelerated genomic data interpretation.</span>*

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Built on a foundation of clinical genomics expertise, we develop software .. and services that make the use of complex genomic data routine,</span>* ***accessible and ubiquitous****<span style="font-weight: 400;">. Our headquarters are on the </span>****Wellcome Genome Campus****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> in Cambridge, UK, however, our reach is global.</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Gryphon Scientific</span>](https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/US-China%20Biotech%20Report.pdf)<span style="font-weight: 400;"> (p 64): </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">A partnership between UK genomics software company Congenica and </span>****BGI Genomics****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> in 2017 to bring advanced drugs to China, through which Congenica </span>****received funding from BGI****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> and access to genomic data from the Chinese population, and </span>****BGI gained access****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> to Congenica’s DNA analysis software Sapientia.</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Congenica/Wellcome</span>](https://blog.congenica.com/2018/09/17/congenica-announces-partnership-digital-china-health)<span style="font-weight: 400;"> (17 Sep 2018):</span>[ *<span style="font-weight: 400;">Congenica</span>*](https://www.congenica.com/)*<span style="font-weight: 400;">, the global diagnostic decision support platform provider, today announced it has entered into an agreement with a new strategic partner </span>****Digital China Health Technologies****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> Cooperation Limited (DCHealth), </span>****further extending****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> Congenica’s commitment to the Chinese market.</span>*

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">The new partnership will see Congenica develop a version of its Sapientia™ platform designed to enable clinicians and patients in China to benefit from the clinical genomics and </span>****personalised medicine revolution***<span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Dr David Atkins</span>](https://blog.congenica.com/2018/09/17/congenica-announces-partnership-digital-china-health)<span style="font-weight: 400;">, CEO Congenica: </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">China is an </span>****important market****<span style="font-weight: 400;"> for Congenica and this new relationship with DCHealth gives us greater insight into what the local market requires to accelerate the broader use of genomic medicine.</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Dr Andy Richards</span>](https://blog.congenica.com/2018/09/17/congenica-announces-partnership-digital-china-health)<span style="font-weight: 400;">, Chairman Congenica: </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Congenica is at the exciting scale up stage of its commercial development. .. (A)t the forefront of the fast-moving genomics market, Congenica has demonstrated how, with the </span>****right investment and leadership****<span style="font-weight: 400;">, the UK can build world-leading technology companies. .. (W)ith this additional commercial partnership in China, it is poised to become the leading clinical genomics services provider.</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Farrar/Koopmans/Nature</span>](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1717-y#Tab1) **(Nov 6, 2019)**<span style="font-weight: 400;">: </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">As well as potentially supporting diagnosis and surveillance, the fast-developing field of genomic epidemiology (and) ..(f)uture developments in predictive technology, machine learning and artificial intelligence will bring more opportunities to move towards ‘precision public health’.</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Gryphon Scientific</span>](https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/US-China%20Biotech%20Report.pdf)<span style="font-weight: 400;">: </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Precision medicine entails the use of genetic and other information to tailor the treatment of an illness to the individual, compared to classical medicine where treatment is by and large the same for all.</span>*

**Farrar/Koopmans/Nature:** *<span style="font-weight: 400;">(I)t will be a challenge to persuade countries to invest in a new surveillance system, for example, before its general effectiveness has been </span>****demonstrated*** *<span style="font-weight: 400;">at a country level.</span>*

**Nov 6, 2019**<span style="font-weight: 400;"> - interesting date to be promo-ing the need for a genomic </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">surveillance-system demonstration</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Fortunately, your big-opportunity - for a demonstration - had already had it’s </span>

- *<span style="font-weight: 400;">soft-bang -</span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;"> even as you spoke - it was quietly welling.</span>

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Wellcome:</span>](https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/about/wellcome-trust-centre-for-human-genetics) *<span style="font-weight: 400;">Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics have been pioneers in genetic discovery, leading the </span>****'genetic revolution'***<span style="font-weight: 400;"> .. </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">in both Genetic Discovery as well as Statistical Genetics. .. The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics remains poised to be at the forefront of the field</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

##### <sup>***CONVERGE (Wellcome/BGI/Oxford)***</sup>

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Wellcome/BGI/Oxford paper (Feb 14, 2017):</span>](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28195579/)*<span style="font-weight: 400;">11,670 whole-genome sequences representative of the Han Chinese population from the CONVERGE project</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">. (title)</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Can you back-off with your CONVERGE everything? What if i don’t want to be converged?</span>

***Abstract***

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">The China, Oxford and Virginia Commonwealth University Experimental Research on Genetic Epidemiology (CONVERGE) project on Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) sequenced 11,670 female Han Chinese at low-coverage (1.7X), providing the first large-scale whole genome sequencing resource representative of the largest ethnic group in the world. </span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">So this is a personality-disorder based exploration. What could that be used for by a totalitarian regime i wonder? </span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Samples are collected from 58 hospitals from 23 provinces around China. We are able to call 22 million high quality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from the </span>****nuclear genome****<span style="font-weight: 400;">, representing the largest SNP call set from an East Asian population to date. </span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">So when they talk about the biggest bank robberies - this is the biggest ever SNP hoist - </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">to date</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">We use these variants for imputation of genotypes across all samples, and this has allowed us to perform a successful genome wide association study (GWAS) on MDD. </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">(MAD people)</span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">The utility of these data can be extended to studies of genetic ancestry in the Han Chinese and evolutionary genetics when integrated with data from other populations.</span>*

***Conflict of interest statement***

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">The authors declare no competing financial interests.</span>*

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">by [**<span class="registered_user">dulan drift</span>**](http://formosahut.com/forum/index.php?id=2982)<span class="interpunction">, </span>Saturday, **July 31, 2021**</span>*