East London Genes & Health: human knockouts in a population genomic medicine cohort of British-South Asians
Year of award: 2018
Grantholders
Prof David van Heel
Queen Mary University of London
Dr Matthew Hurles
Wellcome Sanger Institute
Prof Richard Trembath
King's College London
Dr Daniel MacArthur
Broad Institute
Prof John Wright
Bradford Institute for Health Research
Prof Christopher Griffiths
Queen Mary University of London
Prof Mark McCarthy
University of Oxford
Dr Hilary Martin
Wellcome Sanger Institute
Project summary
East London Genes & Health is a long-term research programme concerning the health of British-South Asian adults. This group can have high rates of poor health, especially diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mental health; high rates of related parents, leading to naturally occurring ‘human knockouts’ and inactivated genes; and excellent electronic health record data.
We wish to expand on recruitment in East London and set up a new programme in Bradford, which will reach 100,000 volunteers. We will analyse the genes of all volunteers to look for known genetic variants and sequence the genes of those with related parents to find rare coding variations in their genes.
This information will allow us to investigate human knockout genes including how they affect populations, biological systems and networks. We will establish a worldwide database of health data and create a better understanding of autosomal recessive disease.