Approved Research

Clonal hematopoiesis in the development and progression of age-related diseases

Lay summary

Acquired genetic defects in the blood cells occur in healthy individuals with increased frequency by increasing age. Specific types of these have been associated with increased risk of multiple cancer types, but possibly also other age-related diseases. Only about 1-5% of carriers of these genetic defects develop cancer, while the majority stay healthy. Little is known about reasoning and risk of the occurrence of these genetic defects and what individuals are at higher risk of developing cancer. This study has multiple aims. We intend to examine

-              Examine potential risk factors of acquired genetic defects in the blood cells

-              Associations between acquired genetic defects, age-related diseases, and mortality

Besides from the data from the UK biobank cohort, we will use data from Danish biobank, databases, and registries. This establishes the opportunity to work with training and validation sets with different demographics to test and strengthen hypothesis and findings.

The study will be performed by Dr. Cecilie Maeng during her PhD-study, which she enrolled September 1st, 2023, at Department of Hematology, Copenhagen University Hospital led by Professor Kirsten Grønbæk.

The perspective is that our study may identify possible early interventions and new drug targets for prevention of development and progression of age-related diseases.