The University of Milan is the second largest public university in Italy, teaching humanities, physics, chemistry, science and medicine. There are 2 Schools of Medicine teaching about 5000 students, including graduate and post-graduate studies, with 1400 researchers.

Facilities description: The Laboratory of Genetic Epidemiology (LGE) of UNIMI is located at the Center of Excellence CISI. LGE has 300m2 of lab space, including classical Molecular genetics. LGE has an automated Illumina BeadStation GWX platform for microarrays, to perform custom (GoldenGate) and whole-genome genotyping and gene-expression, an Applied Biosystems 7500 Fast Real Time PCR and an Applied Biosystems GeneAmp® PCR System 9700 is available, in addition to a 454 high-throughput sequencer. LGE is also fully equipped with a dry lab to perform bioinformatics and system biology. Tasks in GAIA:  UNIMI will have a role in data definition and consensus (WP1), data generation, performing whole-genome genotyping (WP5) and data analysis and modelling (WP7) contributing to statistical analysis of whole-genome associations and integrating statistical and bioinformatics expertise to data modelling. The basic role of UNIMI in the project is the development of genomic microarrays of HLA typing. UNIMI will work on the technical R&D of genomic microarrays of HLA typing.