NHS fights cancer and inherited ailments with new genomic centres

A new genetics project is being launched that will help scientists understand more about killer diseases, the NHS has confirmed.

The health service is setting up genomic medicine centres across the country to gather DNA information on 100,000 patients from 2015 to 2018.

Doctors and scientists will start the project by gathering data on five types of cancer - breast, bowel, ovarian, lung and CLL leukaemia. They will also look into 110 inherited ailments.

The project, part of a £300m government plan from two years ago, aims to make the NHS the world's most "scientifically advanced healthcare system".

Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, said: "Embracing genomics will position us at the forefront of science and make the NHS the most scientifically advanced healthcare system in the world."

The studies will vary depending on the disease. Regarding cancer, the aim is to pinpoint the exact mutations in DNA. People with genetic conditions will have their genomes compared to their family's DNA.

Keogh added: "It will bring us the opportunity to think about the way we think about diseases. Currently we think about them with a certain taxonomy; we give them labels.

"We're going to change over the coming few years the labelling system for different diseases as we get a deeper understanding of what the causative factors are in the human genome."