SardiNIA Project

In 2001, Professor Giuseppe Pilia, researcher at the INN-CNR, received a grant from NIH to study the Sardinian population with the aim to dissect the genetic components associated with aging-related conditions. This was driven by epidemiological studies that observed one of the highest proportion of centenarios wordlwide. This study is focused on a particolar area of the Sardinia island: Ogliastra (central-east), where centenarios are even more common, and where isolation has been even stronger than other parts of Sardinia. The area consists of a cluster of four towns, less than 4 miles apart, and demographic history supports the notion that the smaller 3 villages have been founded by the other one. Of course leading thus at a very high genetic homogeneity. So far, more than 6000 volunteers have been recruited and characterized for more than hundred quantitaive traits (as cholesterol and height or number of cells in our immune system) and hundred of diseases (as Alzheimer, cancer, or diabetes). Most importantly, this is a follow up study, and all volunteers have been re-assessed every 3-years. From 2011, the Project is led by Prof. Francesco Cucca.

Many scientific publications appeared based on this study. Have a quick look through the “Publication” page! My role in those project was to design and carry out all the statistical analyses that are vital in genetic studies, and coordinate the group of analysts at the Institute.

The SardiNIA project has also been one of the contributors to International project. On the left is a list of International Consortia where I have been a co-leader

There are two web-sites for this project, who is known as “Progenia” in Italy and as “SardiNIA” in US.

Italian: http://progenia.sardegna.it/

English: http://sardinia.nia.nih.gov/

Please note that I don’t work anymore in this project since 2017