Biopankkitutkimukset – 2025

PSY-PGx is an EU Horizon 2020 project (https://www.psy-pgx.org/PSY-PGx) that aims to develop a genotyping approach for individualized pharmacotherapy to improve treatment outcomes in patients with psychiatric disorders. In the project, we aim to use Finnish Biobank data and FINDATA register data to obtain prospective data on whether genetic variation in patients prescribed selected medications for anxiety, depression or psychotic disorders affects various outcomes (changes in medication, hospitalization for psychiatric and non-psychiatric conditions, and death (especially suicides).

FinnGen is a 10-year study aiming to identify genetic risk factors for thousands of diseases. The third phase of the FinnGen study focuses on deeper analyses of diseases and genetic variants identified in the earlier phases without expanding the current cohort of 520,000 participants. The project will emphasize longitudinal studies of disease progression and therapeutic responses and explore the biological mechanisms of genetic signals in selected diseases. New health data and molecular profiling data will be integrated with the existing data to further boost our understanding of the biological processes underlying disease development in individuals with specific genetic variants. Asthma, COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and ILD (Interstitial lung disease) are common lung diseases and so-called umbrella diagnoses including several clinical phenotypes and molecular genetic endotypes. In all of these diseases, gene discovery has conclusively revealed tens of susceptibility variants across the genome. Most of the identified variants are non-coding which makes it more challenging to show their relevance in disease biology, not to mention progression, severity or therapeutic response. FinnGen aims to fill this gap by bringing a depth of disease and therapeutic history information over decades that is not readily available in other large-scale biobank efforts. To further supplement the genetic study, we will use protein markers of blood taken in different stages of the disease.

The aim of the project is to explore the potential of convolutional neural network technology in the detection of pancreatic cancer cells from fine needle aspirate and investigate the possibility of classifying pancreatic cancers into different prognostic groups and predicting treatment response based on cell morphology using Deep Learning.

FinnGen is a 10-year study aiming to identify genetic risk factors for thousands of diseases. The third phase of the FinnGen study focuses on deeper analyses of diseases and genetic variants identified in the earlier phases without expanding the current cohort of 520,000 participants. The project will emphasize longitudinal studies of disease progression and therapeutic responses and explore the biological mechanisms of genetic signals in selected diseases. New health data and molecular profiling data will be integrated with the existing data to further boost our understanding of the biological processes underlying disease development in individuals with specific genetic variants. The aim is to study the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing existing brain MRI scans alongside novel, highly sensitive plasma biomarkers. Combining imaging data with genetic and biomarker information could improve the accuracy of staging the disease and predicting its course. In the future,this knowledge could be applied to identify high-risk individuals, supporting clinical diagnostics and prognostic evaluations.

This project is to study the potential association between B-cell neoplasms and Puumala orthohantavirus infections. Puumala orthohantavirus can cause Nephropathia Epidemica, which is a disease associated with an increased risk for the later development of B-cell malignancies. However, most Puumalavirus infections are asymptomatic (not causing the disease) and detectable by the presence of Puumala-specific antibodies. We will screen patients with B-cell neoplasms for the presence of Puumala-specific antibodies and compare that to age-and sex-matched controls without B-cell neoplasms.

FinnGen is a 10-year study aiming to identify genetic risk factors for thousands of diseases. The third phase of the FinnGen study focuses on deeper analyses of diseases and genetic variants identified in the earlier phases without expanding the current cohort of 520,000 participants. The project will emphasize longitudinal studies of disease progression and therapeutic responses and explore the biological mechanisms of genetic signals in selected diseases. New health data and molecular profiling data will be integrated with the existing data to further boost our understanding of the biological processes underlying disease development in individuals with specific genetic variants. The aim is to study the progression of age related macular degeneration (AMD) by collecting and analyzing clinical and genetic data, OCT images and protein biomarkers. In combination, the data will improve the identification of patients with the highest risk of disease progression. This in turn could, in the future, reduce the duration of clinical trials.