Viruses and other infectious agents have been implicated in a range of common non-communicable diseases including cancer, CVD and dementia. The causal infectious agent and how they influence risk is suggested for some diseases such as H. Pylori and colorectal cancer and hepatitis and liver cancer but not as well establish for other cancers and other conditions such as HSV-1 and dementia. The influence of infectious agents directly on the genotype and also on the immune response is increasingly being systematically studied and its combined influence on subsequent risk of disease remains to be fully established.
Whilst UK Biobank does not currently directly measure infectious agent status in the blood for the whole cohort, it is still possible to investigate the effects of such agents using other collected data. This includes using genetic proxies of exposure (for Mendelian randomization analyses) as well as utilising the linked primary and secondary care data.
We plan to use the UKBiobank data to explore role of virus and other infectious agents with non-communicable disease risk. The project will take 24 months to complete. We envisage that this project will create an impact in terms of new knowledge and targeted treatments.