Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. announced that the University of Tartu, host of Estonia's National Biobank, has chosen the Revio HiFi sequencing system to sequence 10,000 whole human genomes and unlock new insights from its populational health data. The announcement follows funding from the European Commission and the Estonian government to help Estonia adopt personalized medicine at scale and adapt public health systems to the biology of its population. The University will also support the European Union's1+ Million Genomes initiative, which seeks to boost innovation in healthcare across Europe.

10,000 whole human genomes will be sequenced and analyzed by the Institute of Genomics at the University of Tartu using Revio. The data are expected to drive a new level of understanding about the genetics of cardiovascular disease, mental, reproductive and female health, cancer and rare diseases, and treatment outcomes. The institute has purchased three Revio systems, allowing them to reach their target of 10,000 genes in the next two and a half years.

The 10,000 new whole genomes sequenced using Revio will afford more diverse data and enable researchers to analyze complex variations, including repetitive regions and pseudogenes. Revio also offers researchers access to the epigenome; this second layer of genomic information is often unexplored, but has noteworthy implications for oncology since aberrant changes in methylation status are characteristic of many cells.