The overall objective of the project is to establish an outstanding research team to form an integrated Center for Genomics, Evolution and Medicine (cGEM). The center will bring together the scientific expertise from three institutions: the Estonian Biocentre (EBC) and the Estonian Genome Center (EGC) which will be consolidated to form the Institute of Genomics at University of Tartu (IGUT) in January 2018, and the Institute of Clinical Medicine (ICM). The scientific expertise and the synergy between the three scientific hubs complemented with ERA Chair holder and the team, will create the research capacity for tackling the aims set for the project. This capacity will be built to apply a holistic approach to understand the evolutionary driving forces that have led to common diseases; develop disease risk prediction models applicable in different populations, and explore the means for translating these findings into suitable input for everyday clinical practice. cGEM aims to apply advancements in genomic medicine in an evolutionarily-aware framework to account for different evolutionary pathways of populations which have led to differences in susceptibility to common diseases. This requires the knowledge about the genetic risk factors for diverse ethnic groups and the tools to highlight the underlying genetic predisposition to diseases in complex human populations. Different evolutionary histories have led to differences in susceptibility to diseases, and moreover, using genetic data for estimating disease risk is heavily dependent on availability of reference data from relevant populations. Therefore, findings from one population cannot be directly extrapolated to other populations, restricting the application of genomic medicine in routine healthcare. To overcome this limitation, the cGEM will utilize our international collaborations and in-house biobanks to advance the personalized medicine solutions for admixed populations for predicting risk of certain complex diseases, including metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, and cancers.
The cGEM project has been successful in generating a multidisciplinary research group that combines together evolutionary genomics, population genetics together with personalized medicine and clinical research. From studying natural selection, migration effects and how past admixture events with ancient and archaic human populations have profoundly influenced immune-related phenotypes in contemporary populations up to establishing experimental pipelines for differentiating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from blood and urine. cGEM has helped to intertwine the research directions of the three institutes that were brought together with this grant with numerous joint research projects and grant proposals. The new research directions introduced during the cGEM project, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and immunoprofiling, investigation archaic humans are new directions that are still to have an effect to the overall performance of the institute. These highly promising directions will be the stepping stone for further development
The synergy created with the cGEM grant together with the development of the Estonian Biobank and the entrepreneurial ecosystem around it will be the driving force for the future success of research excellence at the Institute of Genomics (UT)
