The researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland recently received €1.3 million from Wellcome Trust to support the development of the blood-based test.
Replacing nasopharyngeal swabs with saliva samples or nasal swabs could increase throughput and convenience, as well as relieve reagent and equipment shortages.
The project, the first under a partnership between the university and Illumina announced last year, will apply whole-genome sequencing to challenging cancers types.
An Australian team developed a decision model for testing asymptomatic relatives of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy to assess the cost effectiveness of testing.