woman holding her bare pregnancy bump
The study findings suggest that if the results from genome sequencing can be delivered in the timeframe of a pregnancy, then the additional diagnosis can support the care, counselling and the family’s decision-making during pregnancy
  • Jenny Lord et al. (2018) ‘Prenatal exome sequencing analysis in foetal structural anomalies detected by ultrasonography: the PAGE study’. The Lancet. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31940-8
  • The PAGE study is supported by a Health Innovation Challenge Fund from Wellcome (HICF-R7-396). 
  • The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries.
  • Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (BWC) brings together the very best in paediatric and women’s care in the region and is proud to have many UK and world-leading surgeons, doctors, nurses, midwives and other allied healthcare professionals on its team.  Birmingham Women’s Hospital is a centre of excellence, providing a range of specialist health care services to more than 50,000 women and their families every year from Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond. As well as delivering over 8,200 babies a year, it offers a full range of gynaecological, maternity and neonatal care, as well as a comprehensive genetics service, which serves men and women. Its Fertility Centre is one of the best in the country, while the fetal medicine centre receives regional and national referrals. The hospital is also an international centre for education, research and development with a research budget of over £3 million per year and is proud to be home to a national miscarriage research centre – the first of its kind in the UK - in partnership with Tommy’s baby charity.  Birmingham Children’s Hospital is the UK’s leading specialist paediatric centre, caring for sick children and young people between 0 and 16 years of age. Based in the heart of Birmingham city centre, the hospital is a world leader in some of the most advanced treatments, complex surgical procedures and cutting edge research and development. The hospital is a nationally designated specialist centre for epilepsy surgery and also boasts a paediatric major trauma centre for the West Midlands, a national liver and small bowel transplant centre and a centre of excellence for complex heart conditions, the treatment of burns, cancer and liver and kidney disease. Our Trust is also home to one of the largest Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the country, comprising of a dedicated inpatient Eating Disorder Unit and Acute Assessment Unit for regional referrals of children and young people with the most serious of problems (Tier 4) and the unique Forward Thinking Birmingham community mental health service for 0 to 25 year olds.
  • Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) is the only UK charity providing independent non-directive information and specialised support to women and couples through prenatal testing and its consequences. ARC also works closely and collaboratively with clinicians in the field and runs a well-established training programme for health care professionals.
  • The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. To date, 107 affiliates of the University have won the Nobel Prize.  Founded in 1209, the University comprises 31 autonomous Colleges, which admit undergraduates and provide small-group tuition, and 150 departments, faculties and institutions. Cambridge is a global university. Its 19,000 student body includes 3,700 international students from 120 countries. Cambridge researchers collaborate with colleagues worldwide, and the University has established larger-scale partnerships in Asia, Africa and America.  The University sits at the heart of the ‘Cambridge cluster’, which employs 60,000 people and has in excess of £12 billion in turnover generated annually by the 4,700 knowledge-intensive firms in and around the city. The city publishes 341 patents per 100,000 residents. 
  • Founded in 1852, Great Ormond Street Hospital is one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals with the broadest range of dedicated, children’s healthcare specialists under one roof in the UK. With more than 252,000 outpatient and 43,000 inpatient visits every year, the hospital’s pioneering research and treatment gives hope to children from across the UK with the rarest, most complex and often life-threatening conditions. As an international centre of excellence in child healthcare, our patients and families are central to everything we do – from the moment they come through the door and for as long as they need us. The UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) is part of the Faculty of Population Health Sciences within the School of Life and Medical Sciences at University College London. Together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH), it forms the UK's only paediatric National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre and has the largest concentration of children's health research in Europe. 
  • The Wellcome Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease. To celebrate its 25th year in 2018, the Institute is sequencing 25 new genomes of species in the UK. 
  • Wellcome exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive. We’re a global charitable foundation, both politically and financially independent. We support scientists and researchers, take on big problems, fuel imaginations and spark debate.