Week 2 Flashcards
What is NIH definition of a biomarker?
A characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biologic processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention
What are the methods biomarkers are detectable by?
- Physical examination
- Laboratory assays
- Medical imaging
What are the 4 key stages when considering a biomarker design?
- Definition of clinical need
- Selection of patients and matched controls
- Selection of analytical platform and biological material
- Statistical study design
Definition of a clinical need
- what is the desired clinical outcome?
2. Identifying a problem and potential solution
Selection of analytic platform and biological material
Is it blood/urine/CSF - how are we going to measure this?
Have proteomics approach (proteins)
Best biological material = blood plasma
Identify biomarkers
Statistical study design
Pinpoint potential biomarkers in AD patients blood and this will give us range of controls
Biomarkers need to be verified and validated
Underlying all of these 4 stages, what does it need?
Large population
Report by medical research council
Maximising the value of UK population cohorts
What does the UK support?
Unparalleled collection of large scale population cohort studies
Provide wealth of longitudinal phenotypic, biological and social data for studying health and well-being throughout life
The ability to link to health and other routine records, collect data and samples from consenting participants and
apply cutting edge imaging and omics technologies, places the UK in an optimal position to fully capitalise on these
major research assets.
What does the studies of cohort studies require?
Diverse range of population cohorts that differ in:
- Age
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Socio-economic position
- Geographic location
- Length of follow-up
What do the factors of cohort studies contribute to?
More beneficial cohort in terms of addressing experimental need
What are the 2 largest participant number for UK cohort studies?
- Breast cancer
2. UK biobank
How many people in the cohort for UK biobank?
600,000
How many women in the study ?
1 - 1.2 million
What are the participant in the study driven by?
Government funding
Need for pharmaceutical company to investigate in these studies
What are the large number of clinical studies in UK differing in size driven by?
Public and pharmaceutical desire
When we look at age range of these UK cohort studies what do we see?
Concentration at mid-age between 30 and 70
What do we need to address in clinical studies?
Younger ages
What is trend driven by?
Study itself and by life and age
What is there a need to address?
The missing age gap of particular cohorts
What is the length of UK cohort follow up?
4-10 years
Why is difficult to track people for that length of time?
- Expensive process
2. Need a lot of hard work and dedication to track people
What is the role of large-scale population cohort?
Foundation for understanding the role and dynamic interplay of:
- Genetic
- Lifestyle
- Environmental influences on human health and disease
How are resources used?
In ways to realise their scientific potential and increase societal benefit
- Data-linking between different population cohorts
- Cross-cohort collaborations
2 cohort studies have overlapping aims
Collaboration can increase population size and decrease cost of getting valuable data
Data-Linking
Linkage to:
- Routine health record
- Cross-sector administrative and environmental data
What does research data greatly expand?
Scope of a cohort to carry out:
- Clinical
- Public health
- Socio-economic research
What are recent infrastructure initiatives increasing?
Secure access to clinical records for research and administrative datasets
Why is it important to do data-linking?
- Enrich the study data
2. Expand opportunities for new discovery science
Who established the Farr institute?
The MRC in partnership with funders
What is the Farr institute?
UK-wide research collaboration
21 academic institutions and health partners
Ran between 2013 and 2018 (5 year programme)
Range of universities involved
what was the idea of Farr institute?
Advance health care for patients and public
Delivers high quality, cutting-edge research using big days to advance health and care of patients and the public
What did Farr institute act like?
Data-base
Data from all academic institutions deposit data
Allow researchers to use data to address their own clinical needs
What was found when you compared different sources of information?
A number of these studies missed important data
Why is data process important?
Informs future studies
What can cross-cohort collaboration between institutions provide?
- New research opportunities
(Study of rare phenotypes) - Increase sample size (predict risk and validate findings)
What can comparing or combining cohort populations increase?
Statistical power
Enables replication of findings from individual studies
Studies of inter generational and period effects
help validate biomarkers
What are vital for cohort studies?
Integration of;
- Genomics
- Transcriptomics
- Proteomics
- Metabolomics
- Lipidomics
- Neuroimaging
And other emerging technologies
What has integration into cohort studies improve?
Our understanding of aetiology
Risk prediction
Stratification of disease across different populations
What is MRC cognitive function and ageing studies (CFAS I and II) ?
Two population-based studies investigating health and cognitive ageing in adults aged 65 years and older across the UK
What has CFAS I and II reveal?
Reduction in dementia prevalence over past 20 years
2011 - 214,000 new cases
1.8 per cent lower overall prevalence than expected
What was the major changes in health in people aged 65 (CFAS I and II)
- Longer life
- Reduction in risk factors (e.g. smoking)
- Increases in protective factors (e.g. education)
- Better management of some health conditions