An 80,000-sample immune atlas is the prize in a study Ultima Genomics will sequence, announced October 19: its UG200 platform has been chosen for large-scale single-cell immune profiling run with IMU Biosciences and UK Biobank.
Sequencing readouts come from the UG200, while IMU supplies its High Definition Immunology platform and Waters Corporation contributes the BD FACSDiscover cell analyzer plus BD Rhapsody single-cell multiomics instruments. Taken together, the collaboration covers 80,000 samples.
Half fresh, half from the freezer
Work got under way in September 2026. Adam Laing, IMU’s co-founder, described a cohort split down the middle: 40,000 newly drawn specimens alongside an equal number retrieved from UK Biobank’s cryopreserved stores, among them some of the very last vials left from participants’ first visits.
A GBP 1.57M Sovereign AI grant from the UK government’s Strategic Assets program backs the project. Grant money covers the opening 10,000 specimens, and those will additionally yield single-cell transcriptomic profiles — a deeper second layer drawn from the same people.
Results flow back to UK Biobank for approved researchers to use through its normal access route, adding high-resolution immune profiles onto de-identified genomic, imaging, clinical and lifestyle records already held for 500,000 volunteers.
Validation work with BD Rhapsody preceded the selection, according to Ultima, and the company says the combination makes sequencing-heavy single-cell work affordable at population scale. The UG200 began reaching early-access sites in February 2026 and now ships broadly, after sequencing the 600,000-sample UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project.
Naomi Allen, UK Biobank’s chief scientist, said the data will show which specific immune cell shifts come before conditions such as cancer, diabetes and dementia. IMU also intends to train foundational AI models of immunology on it.
