FUSION (Finland-United States Investigation of NIDDM Genetics) Study

Since its beginning in 1993, the Finland-United States Investigation of NIDDM Genetics (FUSION) Study has sought to understand the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes and diabetes-related traits including glucose, insulin, lipid levels, and obesity. FUSION is a collaboration between investigators in Helsinki and Kuopio in Finland and Ann Arbor, Bethesda, Chapel Hill, and Los Angeles in the United States.

FUSION has enrolled >20,000 participants from across Finland, with participants providing clinical and questionnaire data, blood samples for DNA extraction, and (in a subset of individuals) tissue samples for an array of genomic assays.

FUSION investigators conducted one of the first genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of type 2 diabetes, are leaders in GWAS meta-analyses that have assembled data on >1 million participants to identify thousands of genetic loci for type 2 diabetes and diabetes-related traits, and are working to determine the molecular mechanisms underlying the discovered genetic loci. FUSION data are available to approved researchers through dbGaP and via the AMP T2D knowledge portal (http://www.type2diabetesgenetics.org/).

For more information about the study, please contact Michael Boehnke (boehnke@umich.edu) or Heikki Koistinen (heikki.koistinen@helsinki.fi).