Scientists at the Research Department of Genetic Risks and Personalized Prevention of the WCRC for Personalized Medicine have created the first in Russia genomic reference database for the Russian population as an open-source platform for the results of genome-wide association studies.
The search for associations between inherited DNA variants and disease risks is one of the main tasks of predictive medicine in order to timely identify and prevent unhealthy phenotypes. Large projects such as UK Biobank, FinnGen and Biobank Japan have greatly contributed to the search for these associations, the development of personalized medicine and the discovery of new drug targets. However, the growing ethnic diversity of genetic studies has led to the discovery of population-specific loci that can only be identified in a specific population. Of particular interest is the multinational Russian population, which has a unique genetic structure characterized by various combinations of European and Asian haplotypes. Therefore, studies of polygenic traits in the Russian population can become not only a powerful source for the replication of population-specific associations found in the largest biobanks, but also a resource for new genetic associations specific to Finno-Ugric and Siberian peoples.
To learn more, please read the news of the WCRC for Personalized Medicine.