KORA F4/S4 1000K – NGFN GWAS
In October 2006, the Project Committee of the NGFN (German National Genome Research Network) launched the so-called "GWAS" (genome wide association study) initiative. Selected patient and control cohorts from the five disease-orientated networks of NGFN-2, and from KORA-gen and PopGen, were included in a collaborative genome-wide association study using Affymetrix 1000K and Illumina 550K micro-arrays. The German GWAS initiative gained some advantage over the other schemes, like British Welcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC) and the US-American Endgame Consortium, by the inclusion of phenotypically well-characterised patient and control samples, and by the implementation of extensive and centralised means of genotype quality control. The major advantage, however, comes from the contractually agreed meta-analyses that will be carried out by the consortium, and from the possibility of immediately translating any relevant results of these meta-analyses into follow-up projects by the integrated biobanks.
Partners in the German GWAS initiative include the Department of Medical Biometry, Informatics and Epidemiology, University of Bonn, PopGen, Kiel, as well as the partners in the NGFN.
Initional funding of the network by NGFN2.
For further details see Research Unit 'Genetic Epidemiology' / Projects