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“The "Roadmap" for the implementation of the 1+Million Genomes Initiative, adopted in early 2020, is now easily accessible on-line, just when Belgium becomes the 23rd European country to sign the Genomic initiative. On 26 August 2020, Belgium signed the declaration “Towards access to at least 1 million sequenced genomes in the EU by 2022” and became the 23rd European signatory of the initiative. Belgium’s participation marks yet another step towards achieving access to reference genomic data for screening and personalised medicine in Europe. This will fully leverage the potential of genomics in the prevention, diagnostics, and therapy of cancer, non-communicable diseases, rare diseases, and infectious diseases – for the benefit of our citizens and patients, health care systems, and research and innovation infrastructure.” states the European Commission

To meet the target of having over one million genomes sequenced by the end of 2022, in February 2020, the signatories of the 1+ Million Genomes initiative adopted the ‘1+MG Roadmap 2020-2022’. The Roadmap (.pdf) has been established to provide a clear perspective for tangible outcomes over the course of the next three years and can be easily discovered in the new brochure.

To support the 1+M genome initiative, it has been proposed to establish a mirror group in each country gathering representatives from all sectors directly related with the project. The mirror group preferentially brings together policy makers, (health) professionals, academia and representatives of civil society including citizen and patient groups, industry, …. The Mirror Group acts as a consultation forum with advisory capacity to the 1+Million Genomes initiative for the implementation of the action program, aiming at adding a broader country-specific societal perspective to the work.

The Horizon 2020 Coordination Support Action “Beyond 1 Million Genomes” (B1MG) will support the implementation of the 1+MG Roadmap in the coming years by working towards an agreement on the required infrastructure, the legal guidance and the best practices to enable this access. However, it will look also ‘beyond’ the initiative and drive further the development of a data sharing infrastructure to ensure its sustainability and provide the means necessary for clinicians to pursue personalised medicine and benefit their patients, scientists to better understand diseases, and innovators contribute to and boost the European economy.

For more info see: Beyond One Million Genomes (B1MG) project (b1mg-project.eu)

To establish the Belgian Mirror Group to the “1+M genomes” initiative (incl. the B1MG project), we have subdivided the workload for which we seek support in 12 topics (see below). These topics broadly cover policy-support, lab-technical, clinical, population-health, ICT, ethics-legal, economics/finance. A non-exhaustive list of collaborators for actively supporting the initiative was established through a survey and chairs/co-chairs have been indicated for each topic.