UK genomics expert outlines key lessons learned from pandemic

Sharon Peacock likens Covid R&D efforts to “rebuilding a plane while trying to fly it”

The ability to act and fund at pace will be crucial to responding to any future pandemic, the director of a genomics consortium that helped the UK respond to Covid-19 has said.

Sharon Peacock, executive director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (Cog-UK)—which collected, sequenced and analysed genomes during the pandemic—said that speed was vital.