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The Research Environment

Genomics England Research Environment has one of the largest genomic data sets enriched with clinical data. We enable scientists from academia and industry to make discoveries, laying the foundations for personalised medicine for rare conditions and cancer.

Join to access the data

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What you will be able to access

140,000+ whole genomes

Genomes from NHS patients affected by cancer or a rare condition collected through our 100,000 Genomes Project and the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.

Clinical data

All participants have health data collected when recruited. In addition, we have linked clinical datasets including hospital records, cancer treatment data and mental health datasets.

Multiple data sources

We are enriching our data with proteomic, transcriptomic and digital histopathology datasets, enabling a comprehensive understanding of patient health using robust data.

Current data

Through our secure Research Environment, approved researchers can access and analyse data in the National Genomic Research Library (NGRL). The NGRL is a repository of genomic and health data, including data from those participants recruited for the 100,000 Genomes Project, and from patients recruited and consented via the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS). With ongoing recruitment and consent through the NHS GMS, we continuously add new clinical and genomic data to the NGRL, further enriching the data available for research.

Learn more about the data

The data includes:

  • probands with rare disease and their relatives
  • germline and somatic genomes for cancer
  • alignments and variant calls
  • aggregate VCFs
  • phenotypic data
  • longitudinal medical history data

View summary data on the Public Data Browser

To see an overview of the summary data for the 100,000 Genomes Project held within our Research Environment, you can use our Data Browser.

Open the Data Browser

Data security within the Research Environment

Protecting patient data is paramount and researchers must abide by our data governance. All researchers must perform their analysis within the secure, cloud-based Research Environment. No individual patient-level data can be exported from the Research Environment, instead only results of analyses can be exported.

An independent Access Review Committee sets the criteria for both access and acceptable uses of data within the Research Environment.

Airlock system

Movement of files into and out of the Research Environment is via the 'Airlock' system and is subject to review by Genomics England.

Information security

Researchers cannot copy and paste information from inside of the Research Environment to outside of it.

Authorised sites

Internet access within the Research Environment is only available for sites authorised by Genomics England (called 'whitelisted sites').