The Malaysian Reference Cohort: A Free Genetic Reference for Malaysian Researchers
The genetic references most researchers cite are built mainly from people of European ancestry. Prima Nexus built the Malaysian Reference Cohort, and the free Malaysian Cohort Browser that publishes it, so researchers can cite a Malaysian figure instead.
Case study · Research resource · Malaysian Cohort Browser
The need
A researcher studying Malaysian patients often needs to know how common a genetic marker is in Malaysia. Until recently there was rarely a local figure to cite, so the usual choice was a global or European one.
That figure can be wrong for Malaysians. Malaysia's three largest communities differ from each other at many markers. Several of the markers that matter most for medicines sit at very different frequencies in Malay, Chinese and Indian Malaysians than in European reference sets.
What Prima Nexus built
Prima Nexus has built the Malaysian Reference Cohort from its own testing activity and from community participation, collected continuously since April 2019. More than 12,000 people have taken part. Samples are genotyped on Illumina genome-wide arrays, and the release of 18 September 2026 reports figures from the 9,743 people tested that way, across 762,042 markers. People tested on a targeted panel instead are left out of every figure.
People are grouped by genetic similarity alone. Principal component analysis over about 17,000 markers sorts them into groups without using any labels, and nobody is asked their ethnicity. The groups are named Chinese, Malay and Indian, and those names are provisional until they are confirmed against reference populations.
- Every figure carries its own number of people, because the arrays changed over the years and a bare percentage cannot be checked.
- Nothing measured in fewer than 20 people is published.
- The research archive holds no names or other personal identifiers, and that is checked after every change.
- Every laboratory delivery is kept as its own folder, with its order number, date, platform and a fingerprint of every file. Any figure can be traced back to the files it came from.
The free Malaysian Cohort Browser
In July 2026 Prima Nexus opened the Malaysian Cohort Browser. Anyone can type a marker's rsID and see how common it is in the cohort and in each ancestry group, with the number of people behind each figure, without an account. Registered users can download the figures as a CSV file.
The cohort grows by about 400 people a month, and the browser is refreshed as each new release is built. Every release is dated.
What it means for research teams
For a research team, this means a Malaysian allele frequency can be checked in seconds and cited with its date and its number of people. Before a study begins, the team can see whether a marker differs between Malay, Chinese and Indian Malaysians. For a comparison across a whole panel of markers, Prima Nexus's genomics team can prepare an analysis against global reference populations. To discuss one, contact us.
About Prima Nexus
Prima Nexus Sdn Bhd is a Malaysian research coordination group founded in 2014. It connects universities, research institutes and global technology partners, and runs eight scientific platforms under one roof: proteomics (including ELISA and Luminex multiplex immunoassays), genomics, flow cytometry, stem cell research, animal research, clinical trials, bioinformatics, and regulatory and grant support. Programmes it coordinates have supported more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals and research teams at more than 40 institutions across Malaysia. More about Prima Nexus.
