The Western Australian Genome Health Project
The use of genomic information in clinical and public health applications will ultimately depend upon the availability of total population, longitudinal data and family record linkage so that all those with and without disease, their risk and protective factors, including both genetic and environmental contributions, can be studied in an unbiased way throughout the whole life span. Such linkages and resources already exist in Western Australia (WA).
We are in the process of developing a national and international resource for genetic epidemiology that will build on the unique WA population health data collected and managed over the last 3 decades. The WA Genetic Epidemiology Resource (www.genepi.org.au/wager) is a large scale informatics project currently enabling the integration of all extant and future disease-specific clinical, epidemiological and genetics resources available in WA with the core Data Linkage System. Other core enabling resources constructed in the last 3 years include: a bioethics/outreach group, DNA Bank, high-throughput laboratory facilities, and a National training facility in statistical genetics and bioinformatics.
Building upon these resources, a WA Genome Health Project will seek to collect health data and biospecimens from all consenting members of the living population of WA (n≈2 million people). We will pilot this project in early 2007 via a Family Health Study – a contemporary, metropolitan, community-based cohort study of 80,000 people with a focus on families (www.jfhs.org.au). Over 3,000 health parameters, including blood, will be collected from all volunteers. We have recently completed an extensive program of community outreach that has shown strong support for this project.
We anticipate that significant new initiatives and collaborations relevant to gene discovery, clinical and genetic epidemiology, new therapies, preventive medicine, and pharmacogenomics will ensue at the national and international level.