Serum Biomarkers in the MORGAM Populations

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The role of risk factors, such as raised blood cholesterol and blood pressure to heart disease, to determining future heart disease and stroke has been known for more than thirty years. More recently the level of a protein (C reactive protein)in the blood has been shown to improve prediction but better prediction is needed to identify patients at increased risk, on whom preventive efforts can be concentrated. To do this it is necessary to follow up large groups of people to see if many novel new proteins (biomarkers) can improve our ability to identify persons at higher risk of developing heart disease or stroke. We need to study human populations as the reevance of studing these new factors in animals is dubious. MORGAM is a large European studt which has included 120,000 men and women in 9 countries. A sample of serum is available for all these persons and we will use the latest tecchnology to measure a battery of 19 Biomarkers, some of which are highly novel. The results obtained in the United Kingdom samples will be verified in other European poulations, in men and women separately. In this fashion we plan to derive a scoring system to quantify the cahace of developing a heart attack in the future so that steps can be taken to avert them. The Team is based at the Queen s University of Belfast and in Helsinki, Finland, and in Mainz, Germany.