London Calling 2023

Our London Calling conference starts today – I'll be welcoming 600 pioneering genomics scientists in person and a further 4000 online, and it has me thinking about innovation ecosystems, old and new.

A radical idea catalysed the Industrial Revolution in 1709 when a man named Abraham Darby in Coalbrookdale, UK, had the insight to smelt iron in a coke-fired furnace at a time when others were using charcoal and wood. Coke proved to be a far superior method, enabling the conversion of iron to steel, which could be cast on an industrial scale. New types of industry began to flourish and a community of innovators developed around iron smelting. The steam engine created a new market for iron, followed by iron rails, iron cylinders, and in 1779, the world's first iron bridge was erected over the River Severn. This served as the launchpad for the industrial revolution that transformed the world.

I see nanopore sensing as a similar catalyst to this step-change in smelting. DNA relates to iron, while the community’s sequencing-based applications are analogous to the iron cylinders and train tracks. Our annual London Calling conference – a jaw-drop of talent from this community of genomic explorers – is a showcase of the people who are building the next biological bridge to the fourth industrial revolution, where the melding of physical, digital and biological worlds will support the health and wellbeing of all living things.

Alongside the scientific community we are together creating a new crucible of innovation, with a future guided by data-driven insights into our bodies and surrounding world. This starts with fast, reliable access to genomic information. As Lord Kelvin said: “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it...your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.”

What’s missing matters – the community of scientists using nanopore-based sequencing has shown the biological significance of seeing more genomic insights. Over the next two days of our 9th annual London Calling conference, we’ll hear from hundreds of scientists who are pushing novel discovery across all areas of science – from a nanopore journey in the footsteps of an endangered tortoise to the latest research in liquid biopsy and infectious disease.

And yet we are only at the beginning of a transformational journey, and I'm excited to share progress on scaling the innovations of this scientific community into new, clinical and real-world applications and markets through partnerships. Take healthcare as a starting point. Our belief is that nanopore sensing – starting with DNA/RNA sequencing – will help usher in the next generation of healthcare. In the future, patient care providers should have access to high-quality genomic information either at home or in the clinic.

We have made great early and important steps in this direction, building on the foundational work of the research community through partnerships. These collaborations with likeminded organisations are allowing us to broaden the impact of these scientific discoveries into new environments – whether that’s in healthcare or applied industrial markets. For example, in April we announced partnerships with bioMerieux to develop and distribute our first diagnostic for tuberculosis, and with PathoQuest to better meet the needs of the biopharmaceutical industry through quality control testing. We are continuing to improve the ways we partner with other organisations to bring the full potential of our technology to bear, and we’ll have more to share in the coming weeks and months.

We founded Oxford Nanopore Technologies with a big vision: to enable the analysis of anything, by anyone, anywhere. I’m awe-struck by the progress made by the nanopore community in the nearly two decades since. More than 8,000 customer groups used the nanopore platform in 2022 in more than 120 countries, with more than 8,200 publications of peer-reviewed research in areas spanning human health, the environment, food and agriculture. This community is just getting started and through partnerships we’ll broaden the impact of that research.

Thank you to our community: the partners, our team and customers who have joined us for London Calling either in person or online. We look forward to connecting with you in the days ahead – and building our biological future together.