The goal of our research is to deliver new mechanistic insights into diabetic vascular disease, including the role played by human genetics, to identify novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers. Existing GWAS of diabetic complications (including Diabetic Kidney Disease, DKD) are underpowered, using small sample sizes, imprecise definitions of disease phenotypes, and limited population diversity. The goal of this project is to perform a large multi-ancestry GWAS in type-2 diabetes to identify genetic variants associated with vascular disease, for use in generating polygenic risk scores across populations, facilitate the use of contemporary statistical approaches for ‘multi-omics’ data integration and, ultimately, identify novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers supported by genetic evidence.
Objective 1: Ancestry-specific type 2 GWAS and meta-analysis
Objective 2: Multi-population meta-analysis and genetic correlations of Type-2 diabetes and vascular disease
Objective 3: Multi-Omic data integration to prioritise molecular drivers of type 2 diabetic vascular disease, supported by human genetics