Approved research

Expanding the understanding of complex genetic disorders

Lay summary

There are two specific aims of this project. The first is to use the data stored in the UK biobank to answer the question 'are we able to use clinical information to find and then group individuals who have complex disorders due to their genetic make-up?'. These disorders might include hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and other related disorders. The UK biobank's personal and family medical history information, together with any results of biomedical tests, may allow this to be done reliably. The second aim of the project is to look at and analyse genomic DNA sequence data to see if we can find where in the genome new genes that could be involved in these disorders might be located. This would give us a better understanding of the common genetic disorders and possibly allow us to find new targets for medicines to be developed to help treat them. This would help improve healthcare and as such is one of the UK Biobank's core purposes. We would look both at individuals with a disorder and healthy individuals to be able to compare and see the differences between the two. These differences might allow us to identify new targets to help treat the disease.