Perspectives of international human epigenome consortium

As the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC) launched officially at the 2010 Washington meeting, a giant step toward the conquest of unexplored regions of the human genome has begun. IHEC aims at the production of 1,000 reference epigenomes to the international scientific community for next 7-10 years. Seven member institutions, including South Korea, Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH), will produce 25-200 reference epigenomes individually, and the produced data will be publically available by using a data center. Epigenome data will cover from whole genome bisulfite sequencing, histone modification, and chromatin access information to miRNA-seq. The final goal of IHEC is the production of reference maps of human epigenomes for key cellular status relevant to health and disease.