Rapid advances in molecular biology will in the near future allow insight into which mutations are important for determining an individual's susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, as well as to other multifactorial diseases. Methods for diagnosing mutations are today easy to use; however, strategies for determining the effect of a given mutation on phenotype, as well as on the susceptibility of carriers to disease, are less well established. In the present paper, we describe a DNA bank, consisting of more than 10,000 individuals, which--for a given mutation--will allow us to determine its frequency in the general population, the effect of the mutation on phenotype, and its influence on the development of cardiovascular as well as other diseases.