Ultima UG200 chosen for immune study on 80,000-sample UK biobank – Unite.AI

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 the first 80,000 blood samples from UK Biobank participants and producing a foundational immune dataset intended for AI research.

Study design and participatory platforms

IMU Biosciences announced the collaboration from London on 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 reads. The use of Waters’ flow cytometry and multi-omics instrumentation is part of 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 to the entire cohort of 500,000 UK Biobank participants.

Over time, the data generated through the study will be returned to UK Biobank and made available to approved researchers under the access procedures established by UK Biobank, adding a layer of high-resolution immune profiling to the de-identified genomic, imaging, clinical and lifestyle data that UK Biobank already holds for its 500,000 volunteers. The stated aim of the research is to study how immune variation relates to disease risk, progression, response to treatment and long-term health outcomes. The 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 yet.

Platform validation and sample composition

As part of the selection process, Ultima said the UG200 has been validated for performance with the BD Rhapsody platform, and that pairing the two systems makes sequencing-intensive, single-cell multiomics applications economically feasible at the population scale. The UG200 launched in February 2026 for select early access sites and is now widely available. The selection builds on Ultima’s previous commitment as the sequencing technology for the 600,000-sample UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics project.

In an article 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 the UK Biobank’s cryopreserved collection, which he said 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, BD OMICS-One WTA Next Assay and protein panels will support the IMU’s work. Ultima’s release notes that the assets of BD Biosciences and BD Diagnostic Solutions have been acquired by Waters Corporation, with BD remaining the legal manufacturer of those products until the required regulatory transfers are completed.

UK AI Sovereign Grant and dataset objectives

IMU received a £1.57 million AI Sovereign Grant from the UK Government under its Strategic Assets Program to deliver the project. Laing wrote that the first 10,000 samples from the UK Biobank will be funded through the grant and will also generate single-cell transcriptomic data, adding a deeper second layer of immune information from the donors themselves. He described the dataset as being built with one platform, one protocol and one cohort, generated in the UK by UK volunteers and governed by the UK Biobank, with each profile linked to genetic, imaging, lifestyle and clinical data already held by the UK Biobank.

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 AI immunological models critical for target discovery. In previous work profiling 1,015 healthy volunteers, the company reported that participants have an immune age that doesn’t always match their chronological age, and that smokers’ immune systems tended to appear older than their years.

Ultima CEO Gilad Almogy said the UG200 was designed to unlock biology at a scale previously thought impossible, and pointed to the Pharma Proteomics project as a demonstration of the platform’s suitability for large, deeply characterized biobank cohorts. UK Biobank chief scientist Naomi Allen, quoted in the IMU announcement, said the dataset will allow scientists to study which specific immune cell changes contribute to future risk of conditions such as cancer, diabetes and dementia, and noted that participants’ blood samples have already been transformed into genetic, proteomic and metabolomic data.

The IMU said that the entire dataset will, in time, return to the UK Biobank as a new immune layer available to any approved researcher through the UK Biobank’s standard access process, without requiring researchers to work directly with the IMU.