The Malaysia Cohort (TMC) project is a national project that was initiated by the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2004 and approved by the Cabinet in 2005. It is a long-term research project that aims to systematically build a comprehensive resource constituting a biobank of body fluid samples and big data on healthcare that is obtained from over 100,000 participants who originate from the general population of Malaysia. Investment in healthcare biotechnology is consistent with the core principles of Malaysia’s National Biotechnology Policy. TMC is part of the Asia Cohort Consortium, an international collaborative consortium of 8 countries including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China, India, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States. This consortium coordinates and combines resources and expertise from its eight members in the study of gene interactions, environments and lifestyle-causing diseases within each population. The results of such combined study serve to accurately identify risk factors and discover new biomarkers for a variety of illnesses.