OXFORD, England and
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The fast
spread of the highly infectious Delta variant underscores the need
for faster identification of COVID-19 mutations. Uniting
governments and medical communities in this challenge, the
University of Oxford and Oracle's
Global Pathogen Analysis System (GPAS) is now being used by
organizations on nearly every continent. Institutions using the
platform include: the University of
Montreal Hospital Centre Research Centre, the Institute of
Public Health Research of Chile,
the Oxford University Clinical Research
Unit in Vietnam, the Institute of
Clinical Pathology and Medical Research – New South Wales
Pathology, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. GPAS is also now part
of the Public Health England New Variant Assessment Platform.
The Global Pathogen Analysis System is being provided as a free
resource to help combat COVID-19 and other microbial health
threats. Join the program and learn more at: www.gpas.cloud
Built using Oxford's Scalable
Pathogen Pipeline Platform (SP3), Oracle APEX, and
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), the Global Pathogen
Analysis System is a cloud platform that provides a unified,
standardized system for analyzing and comparing the annotated
genomic sequence data of SARS-CoV-2. Researchers are using the
system to upload pathogen data and receive comprehensive results
within minutes. With user permission, the results may be
shared with participating laboratories around the globe in a secure
environment. Making this data comprehensible and shareable will
help public health authorities evaluate and plan their response by
giving them invaluable insight into emerging variants even before
they are officially designated as Variants of Concern.
Uniting the global research community in a common
mission
"GPAS is the first industry standards-based service anywhere in
the world, offering a standardized sequence data analysis service
for users on the cloud," said Derrick
Crook, professor of microbiology in the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of
Medicine. "Users will be able to access, upload and process their
sequence data fully under their sovereign control and receive back
fully analyzed data in as little as 20 minutes of successful
upload. If they select to share data, they will contribute to
electronic dashboard visualizations of global data revealing the
daily changes in the way the pandemic is progressing and how the
virus is changing. This will enable continuous assessment of the
pandemic and help guide national and global interventions to curb
the impact of the virus."
"COVID-19 is a global fight, yet researchers have lacked the
technical infrastructure to process raw sequences quickly, securely
and share those results worldwide," said Oracle Chairman and CTO,
Larry Ellison. "With GPAS, we are
bringing the power and security of the cloud to enable any
researcher, in any location to become part of the solution. The
more data that medical institutions, governments, and academics
provide, the more quickly we can understand and act to get ahead of
the coronavirus."
Using the platform, researchers and governments will be able to
quickly access the timely, relevant data they need to make
up-to-date scientific analysis and better informed policy and
safety decisions regarding new variants. As part of their work with
the Global Health Security Consortium (GHSC), the Lawrence J.
Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine (Ellison Institute)
and the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) for Global Change have worked in
coordination with Oxford and
Oracle to support the development of the platform and to get it in
the hands of global researchers.
"The world's lack of preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic has
highlighted our need to work differently in order to identify
solutions that are pragmatic and able to scale in the face of
challenges," said Dr. David B. Agus,
GHSC Member and CEO, Ellison Institute. "GPAS is a key building
block in the global data infrastructure for early warning systems
and global surveillance."
"We know only too well that viruses do not respect borders which
is why we must take a global, single-minded approach to contain
this pandemic," said Tony Blair,
Executive Chairman of TBI and former UK Prime Minister. "This
platform promises to bring together data much more rapidly, helping
us to better understand and get ahead of the patterns of spread
faster, so governments can make better policy decisions and
mitigate the devastating impact this virus continues to inflict in
their own countries and across the globe."
To get involved in this initiative, please visit:
www.gpas.cloud
About the University of
Oxford
The University of
Oxford has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher
Education World University Rankings for the fifth year running, and
at the heart of this success is our ground-breaking research and
innovation.
Oxford is world-famous for
research excellence and home to some of the most talented people
from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions,
solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships
and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our
research sparks imaginative and inventive insights and
solutions.
Through its research commercialization arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer
in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts,
having created more than 200 new companies since 1988. Over a third
of these companies have been created in the past three years.
About Oracle
Oracle offers integrated suites of
applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle
Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please
visit us at oracle.com.
About the Global Health Security Consortium
The Global
Health Security Consortium (GHSC) provides insight, analysis and
support for leaders around the world to help them deal with
COVID-19 today and prepare for the health security challenges of
tomorrow. It is a joint initiative of the Tony Blair Institute for
Global Change, the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine,
and a team of scientists at the University of
Oxford.
Trademarks
Oracle, Java, and MySQL are registered
trademarks of Oracle Corporation.
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SOURCE Oracle