Ireland is joining a European project mapping 100,000 genomes drawn from citizens across Europe with 1,200 people across the four provinces of Ireland expected to contribute.

The €45 million Genome of Europe (GoE) project funded under the Digital Europe Programme, involving 49 partner institutions across Europe, will enable groundbreaking medical research leading to improved disease prediction, prevention, diagnosis and treatment. It will also benefit rare disease and cancer research, advances in personalised medicine, and feed into public health policy development.

Mairead O’Driscoll, CEO of the HRB said the mapping project was on an unparalleled scale.

“This is one of the world’s most comprehensive projects of its kind. The mapping of 100,000 genomes will help diagnostic technologies to stratify patients, creating targeted therapies and individualised medicines to act on specific biological features of disease in each individual patient,” Dr O‘Drlscoll said.

GoE is part of the wider 1+Million Genome (1+MG) initiative which Ireland joined in November 2022 and is designed to improve Europe’s genomic infrastructure and capacity. All samples collated within the GoE will be in accordance with the quality and technical standards specified by the 1+MG making it the first widescale quality genomics reference collection internationally.

A consortium of six institutional partners led by Prof Gianpiero Cavalleri of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences will lead Ireland’s contribution to the GoE project through the Genome of Ireland (GoI).

The GoI will establish a reference dataset of at least 1,200 individuals living in Ireland including 200 participants from one or more populations that are over-represented at Irish clinical genetics services and or under-represented in terms of knowledge of genetic variation.

This genomic data will be aggregated with that of other countries at the European level, making it one of the world’s most comprehensive genomic endeavours to date. The wider European project will offer a unique data resource that will redress the fragmentation in genetic information across Europe, including Ireland.

Prof Cavalleri said:

“We will invite participation from across the island of Ireland, to create a picture of genomic variation from people currently living in Ireland. This picture is important as it can enable research to better understand the causes of genetic conditions in Ireland and elsewhere.

“It will create a comprehensive reference genomic dataset of people living in Ireland that will be accessible for pre-approved clinical and research use cases. It will be the first genomic dataset to be housed in the Genome Data Infrastructure (GDI).”

Read the Department of Health press release