FinnGen 3 Bipolar and eating disorder DNA sample request
21.08.2024
FinnGen is a 10-year study aiming to identify genetic risk factors for thousands of diseases. The third phase of the FinnGen study focuses on deeper analyses of diseases and genetic variants identified in the earlier phases without expanding the current cohort of 520,000 participants. The project will emphasize longitudinal studies of disease progression and therapeutic responses and explore the biological mechanisms of genetic signals in selected diseases. New health data and molecular profiling data will be integrated with the existing data to further boost our understanding of the biological processes underlying disease development in individuals with specific genetic variants.
In this FinnGen sub-effort, we aim to identify rare variants that contribute to bipolar disorder and severe eating disorders by exome sequencing approximately 12,000 FinnGen participants. Current knowledge indicates that mental health disorders have a polygenic genetic background. In addition to a combined effect of many minor genetic risk factors (polygenic risk), sequencing studies have identified rare coding variants with a larger impact on disease risk. Despite their rarity, these variants are important for understanding the biological mechanisms that lead to disease susceptibility, potentially opening up new opportunities for functional studies and novel treatment options.
