The Estonian Genome Center (EGC) is a research venture of the University of Tartu. It was founded by the Government of the Republic of Estonia in 2001 and was subsequently reorganized as a research institution affiliated with to the University of Tartu. The aim of the EGC is to create a database of health, genealogical and genome data representing 5% of Estonia’s population.
The database will make it possible for researchers both in Estonia and outside Estonia to look for links between genes, environmental factors and common diseases (cancer, diabetes, depression, cardio-vascular diseases, etc). The results of this research are likely to lead to new discoveries in genomics and epidemiology, and will be instrumental in increasing the efficiency of health care.
The EGC started collecting tissue samples from the gene donors in October 2002. In December 2009 our gene bank contained data from over 40,000 gene donors. An expected increase in the number of gene donors (forecast to reach 50 000 within the next year) will make it possible to run various nested case-control studies.
The bank of gene data compiled by the EGC makes it a valuable partner for research institutions. The first batches of anonymized data from the gene donors were released to our partners in 2004.
The legal framework for the Estonian Genome Center is established by the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Estonia Human Genes Research Act, the Republic of Estonia Personal Data Protection Act, the Republic of Estonia Public Information Act and the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
The EGC started developing its quality management system in 2001 and received an ISO 9001:2008 certificate in 2003.
