The Estonian Genome Project (EGP) is a large population‐based databank that was established with health records and biological samples from a large portion of the population for use in biomedical and genetic research to improve the future of public health care in Estonia. A nonprofit foundation, the Estonian Genome Foundation presented the EGP to the Estonian government in June 2000 leading to a new legislative act, the “Human Genes Research Act,” that provides a road map for future gene‐related activities and guidelines for the oversight of the databank via a Supervisory Board, Ethics Committee, and Scientific Advisory Board. Unlike other gene discovery efforts, participants in population‐based projects are not selected by specific disease type but rather via a random sampling process. The unbiased nature of the recruitment process provides a more accurate measure of the disease risk provided by particular genetic variants and is anticipated to collect 100,000 samples by the end of 2007. The EGP is part of the first international consortia, P3G, set up between Cart@gene from Canada and GenomEUtwin, a FP5‐funded project coordinated by the University of Helsinki, Finland. With Estonia joining the European Union in 2004, the EGP will also function to build scientific excellence in Estonia. Drug Dev. Res. 62:97–101, 2004.
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Andres Metspalu (2004) studied this question.