MRC-GSK pilot programme to identify new targets and biomarkers from genetic association studies

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The rising prevalence of obesity and related metabolic diseases is a major public health problem requiring a broad spectrum of approaches to enhanced prevention and treatment. One element of this is the generation of greater understanding about how our genetic make up and lifestyles interact to bring about these disorders. Previously progress in this area had been limited by our approaches to trying to understand the genetic basis of common disorders like obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, recently it has become possible beyond the former approach of studying the association with disease of single gene variants identified on the basis of prior knowledge of possible biological pathways. New approaches based on studying many hundreds of thousands of variants at once have become possible because of technological advances following the human genome project. However, the downside of this increase in the scale of genetic information is that studies have had to involve many more participants since the chance of an association being found simply by chance is considerable if studies are too small. Therefore, in this study, we will create a collaborative network between research groups to combine existing genetic data from large population-based cohort studies in order to study the genetic basis of 5 common metabolic traits. Following this initial analytical stage, we will confirm the findings in other large studies to reduce the possibility of false discovery and then undertake further work to pinpoint exactly where in the genome the genetic signal is coming from. In this way, we will contribute to discovering new variants underlying the distribution of these common metabolic traits which in turn will contribute to the development of novel preventive and therapeutic strategies.