Approved Research

Understanding the genetic and environmental risk factors and genotype-environment interaction in cardiovascular diseases for precision medicine

Lay summary

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a group of disorders with complex and multifactorial nature. The proposed project is going to reveal novel genetic and environmental risk factors of various types of CVD. Moreover, genotype-environment interaction of these risk factors in CVD will also be investigated. This interaction is of particular importance because people with different genotype may have different sensitivity to a given environmental risk factor, or response differently to a certain treatment for CVD.

The estimated duration of this project is 3 years. The proposed project is expected to provide useful information for a better understanding of CVD pathogenesis. By integrating both genetic and environmental variability of individuals, the current project may contribute to the development of precision medicine for CVD prevention.

Scope extension, June 2024:

1. To investigate the potential genetic and environmental risk factors of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), such as cardiac arrhythmia.
2. To study the genotype-environment interaction of these risk factors.
3. To examine the role of potential genetic and environmental CVDs risk factors on vascular diseases using a PheWAS design.
4. To investigate the risk factors for comorbid diseases of CVDs (e.g., depression), and the mediating and moderating effects of these diseases on the associations between risk factors and CVDs.