Q&A with BLUEPRINT’s Henk Stunnenberg on the New Leukemia, Blood Epigenome Project

The European Union’s $53.5 million, 4-year BLUEPRINT project launched this week with the ambitious goal of cataloging the epigenomes of 100 different cell types, with a focus on hematopoietic cells and leukemia disease states. The project is only the second such effort associated with the International Human Epigenome Consortium—the first being the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium—and it’s composed of 41 research entities, including university labs, research institutes, and drug and diagnostics companies. BLUEPRINT coordinator Henk Stunnenberg, a professor of molecular biology at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, says the project may publish early work as soon as a year from now, and that the epigenomes it uncovers have the potential to generate diagnostics … Continue reading →