GENETIC ISLANDS

Shardna bases its research process on the genetic isolates models. Ogliastra is a unique region in this respect because its numerous mountain villages differ markedly from one another.

The company has therefore focused its research on the study of some of the villages that make up Ogliastra (Talana, Perdasdefogu and Urzulei for example).. These villages are characterised by a limited number of founding members, slow growth, a high rate of consanguinity and endogamy and a minimum level of immigration.

A fundamental strength of Shardna is its ability to reconstruct the genealogical history of the villages. Shardna uses the creation of deep rooted genealogical trees (up to 20 generations) to connect all those affected by the same complex diseases under examination into large families with common ancestors. This allows reserchers to make rational sample selection for analyses and to easily identify the shared genomic regions associated with the diseases. This approach has proven to be extremely cost and time effective.