About the COG-UK Consortium
A welcome from our Executive Director and Chair, Professor Sharon Peacock
Welcome to the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium website. We hope this provides an engaging platform to find out more about our work in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing and analysis to support the worldwide response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our achievements to date have far outpaced anything we thought possible back in March 2020. Key to this success was people: the skills, drive and dedication of our members across all consortium partners. Underpinning everything we have done are core values of transparency, open access data release and collaborative working between public health, research and the NHS.
A key goal when the consortium was in its infancy was to look ahead and envisage a sustainable public health sequencing network across the UK. Having provided the knowledge, expertise, and facilities to provide UK-wide SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing and analysis over the first 18 months of the pandemic, we have passed the baton to the Public Health Agencies to create a long-term national pathogen genomics service. It is a tremendous achievement that this legacy has come to pass.
We are now refocused on three areas of our original mission: research, data linkage and analysis, and training. We aim to create new value from existing data by linking SARS-CoV-2 genomes to extensive and diverse datasets, including human genome data. This will be explored to seek new information about the disease process and prediction of patient outcomes. We will invest in the development of new molecular and genomic methods to detect and elucidate circulating and emerging pathogens, in support of this pandemic and the next. And we will utilise funding for training through the development of open access, on-line modules and train-the-trainer classrooms.
We are also building on plans to weave COG-UK into the fabric of the wider science ecosystem in the UK. We are becoming increasingly networked with other scientific disciplines, groups, and initiatives, including the national core studies. Details of our collaborative partners can be found here. This will preserve and amplify our strengths in preparation for future national and international threats.
Watch the keynote address by COG-UK Executive Director and Chair, Professor Sharon Peacock at the COG-UK Together event in October 2021.
Learn more about our original Structure
