Genome of Europe

Decoding nations: the EU’s largest genome project Genome of Europe launched

The most extensive EU-funded programme on population genomics to date, “Genome of Europe” (GoE), was officially launched by bringing more than 100 researchers and experts from 74 institutions across 34 countries together in Rotterdam, the Netherlands on 30—31 October. During the next 42 months, this groundbreaking initiative, backed by €45 million in funding (with 20 million coming from the EU) will establish a unique pan-European reference database. This will consist of newly generated whole genome sequences from 40 subpopulations across the participating countries to generate the reference genome – all for the benefit of personalized health care.

Cyprus is actively contributing to the “Genome of Europe” (GoE) project through its own national and European initiatives in genomics and biobanking. The University of Cyprus has established the Center of Excellence, biobank.cy, which spearheads the CY-Biobank project. This project aims to create a comprehensive biobank and advance the Cyprus Human Genome Project by sequencing the genomes of at least 1,500 Cypriot volunteers.

27 countries join forces to establish a unique pan-European reference database comprising of a minimum of 100,000 genomes representative of European citizens.