Approved research

Integrative Multi-Omics to Identify Novel Therapeutic and Biomarkers for Respiratory Diseases

Lay summary

Rationale: Common lung diseases affect hundreds of millions worldwide and represent a huge burden to societies and individuals. The exact causes of these diseases are not completely understood. This is the missing link in order to understand how diseases develop and to identify new medications to help patients. Aims: Our aim is to use information from the UK Biobank to find what genes cause lung diseases. We will complement these data with information on gene products and proteins in the lung, airways and blood to better understand the function of these genes and will perform experiments in the laboratory to understand how these gene products lead to disease and how can we develop new drugs for patients based on these genes. We will also use these information to identify individuals who are likely to develop lung diseases in the future. Project duration: we anticipate the project will take 36 months to identify a set of genes that cause lung diseases. Public health impact: the impact of this and similar projects will be huge. Lung diseases are leading cause of deaths worldwide and many medications are not effective to treat them. Finding genes that cause disease using genetics will speed up and accurately identify new ways to treat these patients and find out who is at risk early on in their lives.