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.
There are 94 genetic variants associated with stroke, but little is known about how they actually affect a person's risk of having a stroke.
With the new funding from Genome Canada, Genome Alberta and others, the team will use high-tech "multiomics" 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.
The goal is to identify biomarkers — or molecular indicators — that could lead to better stroke prevention and risk assessment tools, and ultimately the discovery of precision treatments that target the newfound risk factors.
"Stroke's a complex disease and there's 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," says stroke neurologist and co-lead Glen Jickling, who is also Canada Research Chair in Genomics and Genetics of Stroke.
"Genetic mutations increase your susceptibility to a disease, but there's a huge component of the environment that also plays a role," explains co-lead David Wishart, Distinguished University Professor with appointments in computing science, biological sciences and laboratory medicine, and Canada Research Chair in Metabolomics and Precision Medicine.
