{"id":246713,"date":"2025-07-08T01:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T01:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/246713\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T01:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T01:20:10","slug":"u-of-a-study-examines-how-environmental-and-genetic-factors-impact-stroke-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/246713\/","title":{"rendered":"U of A study examines how environmental and genetic factors impact stroke risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A University of Alberta research team will receive $4.79 million in funding over four years to study risk factors involved in stroke development. The study<\/a> will examine blood samples from 3,200 stroke patients to establish a blood-based biomarker for the risk of experiencing a stroke.<\/p>\n

Glen Jickling<\/a>, a co-lead on the study, is a neurologist and Canada Research Chair in Genomics and Genetics of Stroke<\/a>. Jickling is also an associate professor in the neurology division<\/a> of the U of A\u2019s department of medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cStroke is an injury to the brain. There are two types of stroke. One is a blockage of blood flow to the brain \u2026 and the other is a bleeding in the brain,\u201d Jickling said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stroke is the third leading cause of death<\/a> in Canada. National data<\/a> from 2017\u20132018 shows about 878,500 Canadian adults over the age of 20 have experienced a stroke. Some risk factors for stroke include obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure, which is a major risk factor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jickling also cited age as one of the risk factors for experiencing a stroke.<\/p>\n

David Wishart<\/a>, a co-lead on this study, is a distinguished university professor at the U of A\u2019s department of biological sciences<\/a>. He serves as Canada Research Chair in Metabolomics and Precision Medicine<\/a>. Wishart\u2019s bioinformatics courses focus on the use of computational tools for analyzing molecular biology data.<\/p>\n

The project will obtain blood samples from 3,200 Canadian stroke patients and store them in a biobank<\/a>. The U of A currently houses a biobank for stroke patients across Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biobank [at the U of A] has a couple thousand patients who have had a stroke \u2026 and this project will enable it to expand beyond U of A into hospitals across Canada,\u201d Jickling said.<\/p>\n

Genetics and environment <\/p>\n

Patients\u2019 blood samples will undergo whole genome sequencing<\/a> to determine the genetic makeup of each participant. This will help identify stroke-related genetic variants<\/a> across participants.<\/p>\n

According to Jickling, the goal of the study is to \u201cunderstand how those genetic variants are different in people who have a stroke versus those who don\u2019t have a stroke.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to looking at genes themselves, gene products such as transcriptomics<\/a> (transcripts) and proteomics<\/a> (proteins) will also be measured. Measurements will be done \u201cin the thousands of molecules,\u201d Jickling said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The presence of certain genetic variants alone does not precisely predict someone\u2019s risk of having a stroke, according to Jickling.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>It\u2019s often an interaction of yes, you have the gene, plus you\u2019re exposed to a certain environmental stimulus, and those team up together to produce a disease,\u201d Jickling said. \u201cFinding those patterns or interactions needs a larger sample size, that\u2019s why it\u2019s in the order of thousands of patients.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study aims to generate polygenic risk scores<\/a> to indicate individuals\u2019 risk of experiencing a stroke. Jickling explained that the presence of more stroke-related genetic variants would put someone at a higher risk for stroke. Jickling believes this score, combined with measured environmental factors, would improve individual stroke risk prediction.<\/p>\n

Another goal of this study is to \u201cunderstand what\u2019s driving stroke\u201d to \u201cimplement better stroke prevention therapy,\u201d Jickling said.<\/p>\n

Limitations of current treatment <\/p>\n

The current limitations of stroke treatment highlights the need for stroke prevention. For strokes caused by a blood clot in the brain, patients take clot-buster<\/a> drugs to break the clot and open up the blood vessel.<\/p>\n

The main limitation with clot-busting drugs, according to Jickling, is that they \u201chave to be given within four and a half hours of stroke onset.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when given, it only works in about 30 per cent of patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

For patients with a large blood clot in a large artery, a catheter is guided to the brain to remove the clot \u2014 these patients make up \u201cless than five per cent of stroke patients,\u201d Jickling said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers aim to uncover risk factors that contribute to stroke to prevent it altogether. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A University of Alberta research team will receive $4.79 million in funding over four years to study risk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-246713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114814991024012559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}