title: An update on the Italian Twin Register: advances in cohort recruitment, project building and network development.
abstract: The Italian Twin Register has been in place for more than 10 years. Since its establishment, it has been focusing, on the one hand, on a continuous update of the existing information, and on the other hand, on new phenotypes and sample collection. Demographic data on about 140,000 twins have been updated using the municipality registries. The Italian Twin Register has been carrying out several new studies during the last few years. A birth cohort of twins, Multiple Births Cohort Study, has been started and the enrollment is ongoing. For this cohort, data on pregnancy and birth are collected, and periodical follow-ups are made. DNA is being collected for the twins and their parents. In the area of behavioral genetics, most efforts have been directed to psychological well being assessed with self-reported tools. Research on age-related traits continues with studies on arteriosclerosis development, early biomarkers in mild cognitive impairment, and the relation between lifestyle habits and mutagen sensitivity. The Italian Twin Register biobanking has grown in its size and in its know-how in terms of both technical issues and ethical procedures implementation. Furthermore, attitudes toward biobank-based research, together with willingness and motivation for donation, are being investigated. A valuable key resource for the Italian Twin Register is the possibility of linking twin data with disease registries. This approach has been yielding several important results, such as the recent study on the heritability of type 1 diabetes.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy. soni.brescianini@iss.it
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brescianini
authors.forename: Corrado
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fagnani
authors.forename: Virgilia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Toccaceli
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Medda
authors.forename: Lorenza
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nisticò
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: D'Ippolito
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alviti
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arnofi
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Caffari
authors.forename: Davide
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Delfino
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferri
authors.forename: Luana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Penna
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salemi
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sereni
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Serino
authors.forename: Rodolfo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cotichini
authors.forename: Maria A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Stazi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D018579:Patient Selection; D011247:Pregnancy; D016730:Program Development; D012042:Registries; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics*