Meeting Report on INFRAFRONTIER / IMPC Stakeholder Conference 2019: Genetic Variation, Big Data and Ageing

The INFRAFRONTIER / IMPC Stakeholder Conference 2019: Genetic Variation, Big Data and Ageing (3rd – 5th June 2019) was attended by 200 participants from more than 22 countries across Europe, East-Asia, North America and Australia, and was jointly organized with the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC) in Helsinki, Finland. Biocenter Oulu from University of Oulu was the co-organiser and national local host of the event. 

Understanding the role of human genetic variation and its functional analysis is the next big step in genomic and precision medicine. The collection of such genomic data and its analysis falls into the category of big data sciences that has become commonplace in the present biomedical research landscape. In addition to this need, an increasing worldwide ageing population warrants the better understanding of the ageing processes and diseases associated with ageing to not only improve longevity but also to improve the quality of long life. These ideas were the basis for the INFRAFRONTIER / IMPC Conference 2019.

This conference provided an excellent opportunity to support a better alignment of INFRAFRONTIER / IMPC platforms with current ageing and big data initiatives along with supporting interactions with human genetics centres and clinical consortia to promote the functional analysis of human genetic variation.