A CHARITY-funded project will offer genetic testing to thousands of people with ancestral links to Whalsay as well as Westray in Orkney. It is a separate to, but builds on, the long running Viking Genes project which is run through the University of Edinburgh. However Viking Genes’ ongoing £1 million fundraising is for a larger Shetland screening programme, covering more diseases across a wider range of people. The Viking Genes team published a post on its website to explain the difference between the NHS project and its own plans. “We call these actionable genetic variants, because in each case there are treatments or preventative actions that may be taken to ameliorate or avoid the disease.”