Approved Research

Development and validation of polygenic risk scores for coronary heart disease and related risk factors in diverse racial/ethnic groups

Lay summary

Risk scores that are made up of genetic markers in the human genome, i.e. polygenic risk scores (PRS), have been shown to identify individuals at 2-3 times higher risk of heart disease. However, application of these scores to racial/ethnic minorities is challenging since PRS were developed using white participants. Genetic differences across racial/ethnic groups require development/validation of PRS specifically for minority racial/ethnic groups to achieve the same level of performance. In this study, we aim to use UK Biobank and several other ancestrally diverse cohorts to develop/validate PRS for CHD that have high performance across a wide range of ancestry groups including individuals who are admixed. This will allow accurate characterization of the genetic risk of heart and blood vessel diseases and better risk estimations for ethnically diverse groups.