Metagenomic sequencing offers the ability to detect almost any pathogen in human samples. In this technology roadmap, we ask what technological changes are necessary to unlock the potential of metagenomics for diagnosis and biosecurity.

‘Focused Research Organizations’ aim to provide useful information to the scientific community in areas that currently aren’t being served by academia or business.

This support will launch two new FROs focused on transforming drug discovery and our ability to diagnose, treat, and cure complex diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

This new report, co-published with the Tony Blair Institute and Convergent Research, sets out an emerging institutional model for scientific research – Focused Research Organisations (FROs).

For those who sit between science and tech, it’s hard not to notice the proliferation of new initiatives launched in the last two years, aimed at making major improvements in the life sciences especially.

‘Focused research organizations’ can take on mid-scale projects that don’t get tackled by academia, venture capitalists or government labs.

Schmidt Futures—founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy—is spinning out small organizations to make advances in synthetic biology and brain mapping that the current research process isn’t structured to work on.

The Schmidt Futures Network’s first initiative, Convergent Research, will incubate and launch Focused Research Organizations, a new model to fill gaps in the R&D ecosystem to tackle global challenges.

FROs are a new institutional model that the administration can adopt to systematically address scientific and technological challenges that currently cannot be efficiently tackled by standard organizational structures.