CARTaGENE is a population-based cohort based on an ongoing and long-term health study of 40,000 men and women in Québec.
[2] The program was initially founded by Professors Claude Laberge and Bartha Knoppers, and developed through two phases of participant recruitment under the direction of Professor Philip Awadalla as Scientific Director of the cohort from 2009 to 2015, who is now the National Scientific Director of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow's Health (CanPath).
[2] The participants were randomly selected and tracked based on their files in the governmental health administrative databases (RAMQ-Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec).
[5] Information packages about the project were first sent by mail and potential participants were contacted by telephone to enroll and schedule visits to one of the clinical assessment sites.
Blood collection was designed such that DNA and RNA can be extracted for future use,[5] allowing for population level gene expression analysis and genotyping.
[5] The CARTaGENE project has a Systems Genomics program to identify critical events associated with a number of cardiovascular related endophenotypes.
[5] Surveys about nutrition are also included[2] and residential information, occupational history and food frequency data questionnaires are administered.
[13] Researchers must submit an application and undergo evaluation by an independent Sample and Data Access Committee (SDAC).
[5] CARTaGENE has been designed such that its infrastructure including the collection of samples, measurements of biological variables and the storage procedures can be harmonized with other international large-scale cohorts via the Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G) platform.
[19] A nationwide effort is underway to collect samples from participants across Canada, with CaG representing one of five cohorts within the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow (CPTP).
[21] The main concerns raised were about safeguarding medical records and confidentiality, respect for individual transparency, the donor's right to feedback and governance.