From urgent answers to equitable care in APAC | LC26 Studio

How do healthcare systems with vastly different resources find common ground in delivering genomic medicine? In this exclusive online session from the 12th London Calling conference, three researchers from across Asia Pacific discuss the real-world steps being taken to bring long-read sequencing out of the academic laboratory and into routine clinical practice. Nina from National Taiwan University Hospital describes how rapid genomic sequencing — averaging six days in ICU settings across Taiwan and Thailand through the nCare project — is enabling clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions for critically ill patients, including newborns with suspected metabolic or genetic conditions. She highlights how building trust between molecular laboratories and clinical teams has been central to making genomics actionable in time-critical settings. David Thomas from the University of New South Wales in Sydney focuses on Li-Fraumeni syndrome and sarcoma, where germline predisposition is found in around one in eight patients. He explains how short-read sequencing is missing up to half of the structural variants responsible, and why long-read sequencing offers a research pathway toward identifying carriers who could benefit from future surveillance strategies, such as whole-body MRI, to detect cancers at a treatable stage. Chanatjit Cheawsamoot from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand shares how long-read sequencing has moved from a last-resort tool to a first-tier test for rare disease patients in their centre — validating accuracy across structural variants, repeat expansions, and methylation defects to build clinician confidence, and demonstrating that high-quality genomics research is achievable in a middle-income healthcare setting. The conversation closes with an honest look at what would need to change next: universal molecular testing, greater rural access, and scaled genetic counselling infrastructure. Oxford Nanopore Technology is a research-use-only (RUO) platform. The researchers featured discuss how long-read sequencing could in future support the translation of genomic research findings into clinical workflows across diverse healthcare systems. Subscribe for more from London Calling — the annual conference for nanopore sequencing science. Learn more at nanoporetech.com #Genomics #LongReadSequencing #OxfordNanopore #RareDisease #PrecisionMedicine #LiFraumeniSyndrome #Sarcoma #PaediatricGenomics #AsiaPacific #EquitableHealthcare #WholeGenomeSequencing #ClinicalGenomics #LondonCalling #Methylation #StructuralVariants