Igniting Innovation at SoWa: Reflections from the 2024 Nanopore Community Meeting in Boston.

Standing in the historic SoWa Power Plant in Boston, I’m struck by how closely this building aligns with the spirit of our 2024 Nanopore Community Meeting. Once the largest power generator of its time, fuelling Boston’s industrial growth, this space now serves as the backdrop for a new kind of biological revolution. This week, we gathered to ignite the next chapter of the multiomic revolution led by our community of nanopore scientists and clinician geneticists — one poised to drive the future of science, healthcare, and beyond.?

A decade has flown by since our first community meeting in the US – then called the MinION Community Meeting. Back in 2015, when our community was still in its infancy, we welcomed ?roughly 100 attendees at our first US event, a time when we counted 37 nanopore-based peer-reviewed publications. Today, with more than 7,500 active users and 13,000 publications – 1,400 in the first half of 2024 alone – I'm incredibly proud of the thriving global network of innovators who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible.?

Our technology, and this community, have come far since those early days. In just one sequencing run, our platform now delivers unprecedented multiomic insights — from SNPs to structural variations, copy number variation and phasing to methylation — all in an accessible and affordable form factor. I believe this is the new frontier of genomics. And with our telomere-to-telomere (T2T) workflow, we’re on the verge of making comprehensive human reference genomes available to more people globally, catalysing future discoveries and breakthroughs for local populations and ushering in a new wave of opportunities in precision medicine. ?

The importance of this work cannot be overstated. From rapid genomic characterisation in critical care settings, to the identification of new species in the remotest corners of the world, our community is driving meaningful innovation. With the rollout of workflows in areas such as drug-resistant TB and advances in biopharma discovery, we are seeing real-world impacts across health and industry.?

But as exciting as the past decade has been, we are just getting started. At Oxford Nanopore, we are committed to continuous innovation, empowering you — the scientists, researchers, and pioneers — to shape the future. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, where the fusion of physical, digital, and biological technologies will redefine how we understand and interact with the living world. Together, we are building the genomic engine that will drive this revolution forward.?

Thank you for being part of this journey. Your insights, discoveries, and collaboration are the fuel that powers our shared vision. Together, we will continue to innovate, break barriers, and bring the power of genomics to everyone, everywhere.?

Here’s to another decade of progress.?

#Genomics #NanoporeSequencing #NCM2024 #MultiOmicRevolution?