The European Molecular Genetics Quality Network (EMQN) is a provider of External Quality Assessment (EQA) services which are essential for any laboratory seeking to maintain and provide a quality service.
We were established in 1998 after a successful pilot trial of a Huntington disease EQA scheme the previous year. From January 1999 to March 2002, the network was supported by a grant from the European Commission under the Standards Measurement and Testing Programme (contract number SMT4-CT98-7515). The EMQN office was established in St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, UK.
Since April 2002, EMQN activities have been supported by subscriptions from EQA scheme participants. Over time the scope of our EQA activities has changed to incorporate molecular genetics, molecular pathology, pharmacogenetics, virology, non-invasive prenatal testing, postnatal testing, and technique specific EQA schemes for molecular testing such as Next Generation DNA sequencing (NGS). During this time, the EMQN office continued to be located at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester and the number of staff employed increased from 1 to 12.
In July 2021, EMQN was spun out of the UK health service as an independent community-interest company called EMQN CIC (read more about it here). We are now located in our own office and laboratory space on the Manchester Science Park (see here for directions).