Rapid genome sequencing has brought incalculable benefits to us all. The technology is used, among other things, to diagnose diseases, improve crops, develop new therapies and underpin surveillance of coronavirus in the UK. In 1998, the Cambridge chemists who invented the technology founded spinout company Solexa. In 2007, Illumina acquired Solexa for £600 million, keeping an office in Cambridge which today employs more than 700 people. Today, Solexa-Illumina ‘next-generation sequencing’ is thought to be responsible for as much as 90% of the total DNA and RNA sequenced globally.
Added 9 November 2022