Germany’s National Genome Research Network (NGFN) announced today their plan to conduct one of the World’s largest disease genetic research projects to date, which will investigate genetic variations that trigger complex diseases. Scientists will genotype up to 25 000 patients and controls using both Affymetrix and Illumina genotyping technologies to better understand the underlying causes of 25 diseases, including several civilisation disorders, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, heart diseases, and malaria.
Researchers will compare patients’ data with the data of healthy controls to identify genetic variations and differences associated with the diseases.
“Each individual participant of this study will be analyzed with regard to several hundred thousand genetic details,” said Professor Max Baur from the university of Bonn. “We have the possibility to receive more than 20 billion individual data in the scope of one huge experiment. This is the first step into a new world of genetics,” added Professor Peter Nürnberg, the coordinator of Germany’s National Genotyping Platform.
“With this large-scale project, we hope to encourage the launch of further projects of this kind,” said Professor Stefan Schreiber of the University of Kiel. “Other projects, like the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium in the UK, have already taken first steps toward a systematic elucidation of the genetic causes of disease. With our initiative we go a step further: Our aim is to discover how similar diseases are linked in order to identify genes related to multiple diseases. The ability to address large sample cohorts such as these is crucial to understanding complex genetics.”
Courtesy: Affymetrix
Results of the studies will be ultimately accessible to both researchers from academia and the pharmaceutical industry. All investigations will comply with strict data protection guidelines and only be carried out with the written consent of the study participants and under approval of the respective ethics committees.
The National Genome Research Network is a large scale biomedical program initiated in 2001 by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). The research activity of the NGFN focuses on investigating genetic causes of common diseases. Both Affymetrix and Illumina develop tools for the analysis of genetic variation and function.
Disease areas that will be studied in this NGFN genetic research project include anorexia, adipositas, epilepsy, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, clinical depression, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, alcohol addiction, inflammatory bowel disease, atopic eczema, psoriasis, sarcoidosis, coronary heart disease, left ventricular hypertrophy, diastolic myocardial insufficiency, dilatative cardiomyopathy, several forms of malaria and tuberculosis.
Furthermore the NGFN scientists want to reveal the genetic causes of longevity in order to understand the principles of the aging process and to find new approaches for the treatment of age-related diseases.
Courtesy: Illumina
