Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet are planning an international initiative to map the relationships between health, genes and lifestyle, in what they say could be one of ‘the most comprehensive medical projects since the mapping of the human genome.’ Discussions are already underway with leading scientists in the US, UK, Singapore and Norway about the initiative, which has the working title ‘LifeGene’. The goal would be to combine recent advances in biotechnology with information on people’s lifestyles, resulting in a ‘knowledge bank’ that provides researchers, public authorities and decision makers with new data on the causes of disease and their prevention.
