How Finland is teaming up with pharma to identify genetic variants in disease

The country’s FinnGen Project seeks to use its unique population bottleneck and cohesive health records to drive genetic insights. Deep in the belly of the University of Helsinki, large metallic cylinders line a basement lab. While the setting is clinical, scientists have added a playful touch with snow-themed name tags on each of the vats. Still, the mission of the lab is serious — inside “snow queen” and “snow castle” lie genetic samples that could potentially help decode genetic variants responsible for disease.

Finland is unique

Finland came onto the world stage last year when it was named “happiest country” by Forbes. But it isn’t just their happiness scores that make the Finnish people unique.

Situated in the far northeast corner of Europe, over the last few millennia Finland has seen less immigration than other parts of Europe. This has led to Finland becoming one of the largest population bottlenecks, meaning that the Finnish gene pool is largely homogeneous.

This fact can help scientists pinpoint gene variants that are linked to specific diseases, Anu Jalanko, project manager at FinnGen, said at a media event in June. Instead of researchers sifting through billions of variants to link them to a disease or condition, they need only sift through hundreds of thousands.

“We geneticist use this fact to have an easier time to identify variants, and identify specific variants in complex situations,” Aarno Palotie, scientific director of the FinnGen Project, said at HIMSS Europe in June.