In an announcement dated October 19, 2026, Ultima Genomics said its UG200 Sequencing Platform has been selected to power a large-scale single-cell immune profiling study with IMU Biosciences and UK Biobank, covering an initial 80,000 blood samples from UK Biobank participants and producing a foundational immune dataset intended for AI research.
Study Design and Participating Platforms
IMU Biosciences announced the collaboration from London the same day, naming UK Biobank, Waters Corporation and Ultima Genomics as collaborators. The study combines IMU’s High Definition (HD) Immunology platform with Waters Corporation’s BD FACSDiscover Cell Analyzer and BD Rhapsody single-cell multiomics platforms, with Ultima’s UG200 producing the project’s sequencing readouts. The use of Waters’ flow cytometry and multi-omic instrumentation falls under a strategic partnership between IMU and Waters announced in June 2026. The initial cohort comprises 80,000 blood samples from UK Biobank participants, with a stated ambition to expand profiling across UK Biobank’s full cohort of 500,000 participants.
Over time, data generated through the study will be returned to UK Biobank and made available to approved researchers under UK Biobank’s established access procedures, adding a high-resolution immune profiling layer to the de-identified genomic, imaging, clinical and lifestyle data UK Biobank already holds for its 500,000 volunteers. The stated research purpose is to study how immune variation relates to disease risk, progression, treatment response and long-term health outcomes. IMU said it will generate more than 100 million immune data points from each sample, and said the study aims to create the most detailed large-scale picture of the human immune system ever seen.
Platform Validation and Sample Composition
As part of the selection process, Ultima said the UG200 was validated for performance with the BD Rhapsody platform and that pairing the two systems makes sequencing-intensive single-cell multiomics applications economically viable at population scale. The UG200 launched in February 2026 to select early-access sites and is now shipping broadly. The selection builds on Ultima’s earlier engagement as the sequencing technology for the 600,000-sample UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project.
In a companion insight also published on October 19, IMU co-founder and chief scientific officer Adam Laing wrote that profiling began in September 2026. The initial cohort consists of 40,000 fresh samples and 40,000 samples drawn from UK Biobank’s cryopreserved collection, which he noted includes some of the last remaining vials from participants’ original visits. IMU reports that its HD Immunology platform resolves up to 2,500 immune cell subsets from a single 2 ml blood sample, and that its process is automated and standardized so that profiles generated at different times remain comparable.
Steve Conly, senior vice president of Waters Biosciences at Waters Corporation, said the BD FACSDiscover Cell Analyzer, BD flow cytometry reagents, BD Rhapsody instruments and BD OMICS-One WTA Next Assay and Protein Panels will support IMU’s work. Ultima’s release noted that the BD Biosciences and BD Diagnostic Solutions businesses have been acquired by Waters Corporation, while BD remains the legal manufacturer of those products until required regulatory transfers are completed.
UK Sovereign AI Grant and Dataset Aims
IMU has been awarded a £1.57 million Sovereign AI grant from the UK government under its Strategic Assets programme for delivery of the project. Laing wrote that the first 10,000 UK Biobank samples are being funded through the grant and will also generate single-cell transcriptomic data, adding a second, deeper layer of immune information from the same donors. He described the dataset as built with one platform, one protocol and one cohort, generated in the UK from UK volunteers and governed by UK Biobank, with every profile linked to the genetic, imaging, lifestyle and clinical data UK Biobank already holds.
IMU said the study will strengthen its ability to develop and validate immune profiles for patient stratification, biomarker discovery and translational research, and to generate new foundational AI models of immunology for target discovery. In earlier work profiling 1,015 healthy volunteers, the company reported that participants have an immune age that does not always match their chronological age and that smokers’ immune systems tended to look older than their years.
Ultima chief executive Gilad Almogy said the UG200 was designed to unlock biology at a scale previously thought impossible, and pointed to the Pharma Proteomics Project as demonstrating the platform’s suitability for large, deeply characterized biobank cohorts. UK Biobank chief scientist Naomi Allen, quoted in IMU’s announcement, said the dataset will let scientists study which specific immune cell changes contribute to the future risk of conditions such as cancer, diabetes and dementia, and noted that participants’ blood samples have already been turned into genetic, proteomic and metabolomic data.
IMU said the full dataset will, in time, return to UK Biobank as a new immune layer available to any approved researcher through UK Biobank’s standard access process, without requiring researchers to work with IMU directly.
