VIKING II/III (PI Professor Jim Wilson)

VIKING II/III is a genetic epidemiology study of people with heritage from the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland.

The VIKING II and VIKING III studies are genetic epidemiology cohorts recruited from people with grandparents from the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland.

Research team

Professor Jim Wilson

Dr Shona Kerr

Funder

• MRC Human Genetics Unit quinquennial programme grant “QTL in Health and Disease”.
• Wellcome Trust Institutional Translational Partnership Award

More information

The VIKING II and III studies aim to identify so-called actionable genetic variants, which cause important diseases such as cancer or heart disease in the participants, both to allow return of these results to individuals and to provide an evidence base for future screening where variants have become much more common than elsewhere. The data will also contribute to the understanding of the contribution of common variants to common diseases public health importance. The study aims to be an exemplar of genomic medicine. All participants have ancestry from Shetland and Orkney (VIKING II) or the Inner and Outer Hebrides (VIKING III).