A team of University of Alberta researchers has been granted $4.79 million over four years to better understand how genetic and environmental factors like diet and exercise interact to affect stroke risk and stroke outcome.<\/p>\n
There are 94 genetic variants associated with stroke, but little is known about how they actually affect a person\u2019s risk of having a stroke.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the new funding from Genome Canada<\/a>, Genome Alberta<\/a> and others, the team will use high-tech \u201cmultiomics\u201d methods to examine the DNA (genomics), RNA (transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics) and metabolism (metabolomics) in biobanked blood samples from 3,200 Canadian stroke patients. They will then cross-reference those results with clinical and other records to search for patterns using machine learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n The goal is to identify biomarkers \u2014 or molecular indicators \u2014 that could lead to better stroke prevention and risk assessment tools, and ultimately the discovery of precision treatments that target the newfound risk factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cStroke\u2019s a complex disease and there\u2019s not one clear gene that causes stroke, so taking a multiomics approach where you integrate genetics with other biological markers to understand that complexity is a very useful approach,\u201d says stroke neurologist and co-lead Glen Jickling<\/a>, who is also Canada Research Chair in Genomics and Genetics of Stroke<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGenetic mutations increase your susceptibility to a disease, but there\u2019s a huge component of the environment that also plays a role,\u201d explains co-lead David Wishart<\/a>, Distinguished University Professor with appointments in computing science<\/a>, biological sciences<\/a> and laboratory medicine<\/a>, and Canada Research Chair in Metabolomics and Precision Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone might have the genetic propensity for a stroke but they exercise regularly, maintain a good weight, a good diet, and that environment has an impact on whether they have a stroke,\u201d says Wishart. \u201cThat\u2019s why metabolites and proteins will also be measured.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s that interplay between genes and environment that we\u2019re trying to tease apart.\u201d<\/p>\n Jickling says speedy diagnosis is key with stroke because many of the medications to treat it must be taken within a few hours of the stroke occurring.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIdentifying stroke is challenging, so we\u2019re hopeful part of this work will be developing an omic marker to help clinicians diagnose stroke better and faster to guide treatment,\u201d Jickling says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, some of our treatments don\u2019t always work. You can be on aspirin or a blood thinner and still have a stroke. We\u2019re hopeful that we can identify new targets to better prevent strokes.\u201d<\/p>\n A \u201cgold mine\u201d of data<\/p>\n Health Canada reports<\/a> that nearly 900,000 Canadian adults have experienced a stroke, which happens when blood stops flowing to a part of the brain, damaging the brain cells. It\u2019s the fifth leading cause of death and a major cause of disability, costing $3.6 billion a year in hospital care, rehabilitation and decreased productivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Canada-wide biobank of stroke patients\u2019 samples, housed at the U of A, aims to increase diversity in the genetic understanding of stroke, reflecting the population of Canada. It contains detailed clinical information about the patients, including suspected causes of stroke, outcome and complications. All of this will make the results more broadly applicable, Jickling says.<\/p>\n Two thousand samples have already been taken, and 1,200 more patients will be recruited for the study. A patient advisory group will help to direct the research questions.<\/p>\n The research team, which will include undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students, will use genetic sequencing and mass spectrometry to examine the blood samples and then use sophisticated bioinformatics tools to analyze what they find.<\/p>\n Wishart points out that similar methods of analysis of the UK Biobank of half a million people\u2019s samples<\/a> have recently uncovered predictors for Parkinson\u2019s disease, illuminated how diabetes affects the structure of the heart and pinpointed genes that protect against obesity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at that tipping point where the technology is getting cheap enough, comprehensive enough, robust and reproducible enough so that it is time to invest in these biobanks,\u201d says Wishart, who likens biobanks to a \u201cgold mine\u201d of data. \u201cIt\u2019s like clinical chemistry on steroids.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis should be viewed as a starting point,\u201d points out Jickling. \u201cThis is a huge repository of information that can be explored for years.\u201d<\/p>\n Wishart heads the highly cited Wishart Research Group<\/a> and established The Metabolomics Innovation Centre<\/a>, a world leader in metabolomics research. He is also a member of the Women and Children\u2019s Health Research Institute<\/a> (WCHRI). Jickling is a world leader in stroke biomarkers, and a member of both WCHRI and the Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Genomics of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease<\/a> research project is funded by Genome Canada and Genome Alberta, with support from Alberta Innovates<\/a>, the University Hospital Foundation<\/a>, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada<\/a>, the U of A stroke program<\/a>, Illumina<\/a>, The Metabolomics Innovation Centre and the Alberta Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team of University of Alberta researchers has been granted $4.79 million over four years to better understand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[323,1942,42692,42687,42689,42686,26422,267,3900,42685,42688,42690,233,42691,25997,70,11548,7448,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-90016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-biobanks","11":"tag-biological-sciences","12":"tag-canada-research-chairs","13":"tag-david-wishart","14":"tag-epigenetics","15":"tag-genetics","16":"tag-genomics","17":"tag-glen-jickling","18":"tag-laboratory-medicine","19":"tag-metabolomics","20":"tag-neurology","21":"tag-phenotyping","22":"tag-proteomics","23":"tag-science","24":"tag-stroke","25":"tag-transcriptomics","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114483482271204808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90016","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=90016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}