Projects FinnGen

Initial data freezes (R1–R3) with growing sample sizes and phenotype coverage. Demonstrated the power of the Finnish population isolate for identifying low-frequency variant associations.

R4 (Nov 2020), R5 (May 2021), and R6 (Jan 2022) releases with expanded sample size and phenotype coverage. R4 marked the first major public data release enabling broad GWAS discovery across the Finnish population.

R8–R12 data freezes with progressive sample size increases and phenotype expansion. Cross-biobank meta-analyses with UK Biobank (R10-UKBB, R12-UKBB meta) and later integration with Kanta electronic health record laboratory values, enabling large-scale genetic discovery across populations.

FinnGen R7 data freeze of 224,737 participants analyzed across 1,932 disease endpoints. Identified 30 new low-frequency variant associations enriched in Finland, and 2,733 genome-wide significant associations through phenome-wide scanning. Published in Nature (Kurki et al., 2023).

FinnGen launched in 2017 as a public-private partnership combining genome information with digital health care data from Finnish biobanks and national health registers. Aims to recruit 500,000 Finnish participants, leveraging the population bottleneck effect of Finland for genetic discovery.