Mapping the Danish genome was the Danish Research Result of the Year
Researchers from Health can enjoy a large part of the credit for the research project GenomeDenmark, which the readers of Videnskab.dk have just chosen as the Danish Research Result 2017. The researchers have analysed fifty families' genomes and created access to very precise knowledge about how the genome of a healthy, average Dane looks.
Every year, Videnskab.dk chooses the Danish Research Result of the year. This year’s winning study, GenomeDenmark, which has mapped the genome of the average Dane, has researchers from Aarhus University has important members of the research consortium.
See the news article at videnskab.dk about this year's research result here (in Danish only).
After five years work to completely map the genome of 150 Danes from scratch, a consortium of Danish researchers could present a reference genome that was far more detailed than in any other studies around the world.
One of the researchers from Aarhus behind the study is professor and centre director Anders Børglum from the Department of Biomedicine and the Centre for iSequencing at Aarhus University. He explains that the new reference genome can be used to strengthen personalised medicine – among other things in connection with mental disorders, which is his own area of research. In future, he will be able to use the Danish reference genome to look up whether the genetic variant that he suspects of contributing to mental disorders is completely normal among healthy Danes, or whether it deviates from the average.
"We can use the reference genome as a kind of reference source, and examine the previously unknown variants and areas of the genome. "Finding genetic variants that increase the risk of a mental disorder can also help give us a greater understanding of the biological mechanisms behind the disease. Because the genes can put us on the right track," says Anders Børglum.
About the study
Read more about the GenomeDenmark consortium and the Danish Reference Genome Project at www.genomedenmark.dk.
The project has received DKK 86 million in support from Innovation Fund Denmark.
Read the scientific article which has been published in Nature.
In addition to researchers from Aarhus University, researchers from the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark and Beijing Genomics Institute have also contributed to the project.
Contact
Professor Anders Børglum
Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine and Centre for iSequencing
Mobile: (+45) 6020 2720
Email: anders@biomed.au.dk