INESC-ID researcher and coordinator of INESC-ID’s Life and Health Technology Thematic Line, Ana Teresa Freitas, recently talked on RTP’s TV programme “Portugal em Direto”, about the creation of a new database with the genome of 1 million Europeans.

The goal is to gather individual genetic and health data to build risk models that will ease the development of more effective and personalised medicines, and allow more robust responses to future pandemics by understanding health risk factors within different populations. For example, a study back in 2021 determined that the Portuguese population is more vulnerable to a lack of vitamin D. 

The project will end in 2026, and it will be one of the largest databases of the European population, with Portugal contributing with the data of 16000 people. The data acquired will not leave its respective countries, respecting security and privacy laws.

Watch the interview (in Portuguese here (11:22 – 14:14)