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FIMM – Building a Bridge from Discovery to Medicine Finnish Twin Studies

The twin study project at the University of Hel-
sinki began in 1974 with the Older Finnish Twin
Cohort study to investigate genetic and envi-
ronmental determinants of common, complex
diseases and behavioural risk factors. Later, two
younger birth cohorts, Finntwin16 (twins born
1975-79) and Finntwin12 (born 1983–1987) studies
were initiated. These longitudinal follow-up
studies have continued to this day, with four to
five waves of data collection. Within these co-
horts, smaller studies with clinical, imaging and
‘omics data collection have been conducted. A
new resource, TwinRegistry, was established re-
cently by linking data from the older twin cohort
with data collected in 1975, 1981, 1990 and 2011
to multiple national health and social welfare
registers. The linkages cover not only twins, but
also their close relatives with a total sample size
of several million. The broad behavioural data
spanning almost four decades from the 1960s to
today makes this a unique resource.

FinRegistry

The FinRegistry project leverages nationwide
health and socio-demographic registry data
to explore comprehensive risk trajectories and
uses this information to develop statistical and
machine learning models to predict disease oc-
currences from registry data. The project aims
to develop new ways to model the complex
relationships between health and risk factors.
FinRegistry utilises the unique registry system
in Finland to combine health data with a wide
range of other information from nearly the
whole Finnish population. The complex relation-
ship between health outcomes, medications, so-
cio-demographic information, and familial risk
will provide new epidemiological and biological
hypotheses that can be addressed with targeted
studies.​FinRegistry includes all individuals
alive and living in Finland on 1st of January 2010
as well as the index persons’ parents, siblings,
children, and spouses. FinRegistry is a joint re-
search project of the Finnish Institute of Health
and Welfare (THL) and Andrea Ganna’s research
group at FIMM.

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