We are pleased to highlight a significant accomplishment within our research community: the publication of a new article in Nature Communications led by co‑first author Peyton McClelland. Congratulations to Peyton and to all collaborators involved in this impressive achievement!
Their study “A multi-ancestry genetic reference for the Quebec population”, published in Nature Communications on 31 January 2026, features contributions from several members of the CERC, including Alejandro Mejia Garcia, Mohadese Sayahian Dehkordi, Hongyu Xiao, Justin Pelletier, Vincent Chapdelaine, Geneviève Gagnon, Claude Bhérer and Daniel Taliun.
The article is available here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-68820-7
A multi-ancestry genetic reference for the Quebec population
The paper establishes a multi‑ancestry genetic reference for the Quebec population by analyzing genome‑wide genotypes from 29,337 CARTaGENE participants and whole‑genome sequencing of 2,173 individuals with grandparental origins in Canada, Haiti, and Morocco. This resource improves downstream analyses in several ways: the authors validate a Quebec‑specific imputation panel built from these sequences and show that, across 42 clinically relevant traits, it increases the number of associated loci by ~7% compared with using the larger TOPMed panel alone. The study also provides allele frequency data and GWAS results via public portals, enabling global reuse, and illustrates how the reference helps interpret variants in clinically important genes (e.g., SPG7). Together, the data and tools strengthen precision‑medicine efforts by better capturing Quebec’s demographic history and genetic diversity.
Please join us in congratulating Peyton and the entire team on this milestone achievement!