Genes & Health (version 1)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Genes & Health: a population based DNA sequencing, medical records, and recall BioResource study of British-Bangladeshi and British-Pakistani communities. At sites the study short title will be: East London Genes & Health Born In Bradford Genes & Health Bradford Genes & Health

• IRAS ID

  146051

• Contact name

  David A van Heel

• Contact email

  d.vanheel@qmul.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Queen Mary University of London

• Research summary

  In East London [and second site Bradford], South Asian people have some of the highest rates of heart disease, diabetes, and poor health in the UK. Living with a long-term illness has a major impact on a person’s quality of life and on their family. Genes & Health is a medical research study set up to help fight against these and other major diseases.

  Some early aims of the study are:
  • To study normal variation in genes in adult Bangladeshi and Pakistani people. Knowing what is normal is important when searching for genes causing inherited childhood diseases.
  • To study genes in people with very high and very low cholesterol levels, to better understand why heart disease and stroke occurs.
  • To study variation in genes in healthy adults whose parents are related. These studies will tell us how genes work, and help develop new medicines.
  • To study genes of people with diabetes, aiming to identify rarer types of diabetes for which more specific treatments can be used.

  We will establish a panel of 100,000 local adult volunteers, who will be asked to donate a small saliva (spit) sample and share their GP and hospital medical records in strict confidence with the study team. Volunteers will be asked to give their consent to be contacted again and some (~1000/year) may be invited to participate in further medical research studies on the basis of data gathered from their samples and information. Genes & Health will support many other medical research studies (each with their own separate ethics approval). One study (approval sought in this application) is looking at how genetic variation influences RNA and proteins in blood cells, by inviting selected volunteers to donate 50ml blood. De-identified information and samples may be made available to approved scientists in academia and industry worldwide.

• REC name

  London - South East Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  14/LO/1240

• Date of REC Opinion

  16 Sep 2014

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion