Biobanking
Support Coordinators
Rationale
Despite the longstanding awareness that disease risk and complex phenotypes relate to factors individuals are exposed to during their lifetime and to their genetic susceptibility (and to random chance), a clear picture of the combined effects of genotype and exposure on disease risk is yet to emerge. Up until recently studies into gene-environment interaction (or into genetic main effects) were often characterized by small sample size (yielding inconsistent and statistically unreliable results), incomplete or inadequate measures of environmental exposures (e.g. retrospective) and lack of formal statistical testing of effects. This situation is rapidly changing on several fronts. Large-scale collaborations in GWA (genome-wide association) studies demonstrate that success in identifying genes is possible if very large samples become available and such enterprises are rewarded by funding agencies (e.g. the NIH-GAIN initiative). In order to further advances in genetics and epidemiology the next steps to take will involve looking at interaction (instead of main effects) between genes and environment and this requires high quality exposure data from longitudinal studies; information of direct clinical, aetiological and public health relevance. There is also is a need for additional data beyond the observable phenotype, e.g. proteomics, expression and imaging phenotypes. In addition, we may expect that, after the initial enthusiasm and successes of GWA, the need will arise for biological samples collected in families to search for genetic underpinnings of traits that are characterized by genetic heterogeneity. Due to the unique combination of populations collected at VU/VUMC (such as the biological sample collections of NTR, NESDA, and those collected in the Alzheimer Center and the MS Center) we are in an ideal position to conduct such studies. The available large population-based prospective studies provide data on a wide range of neurological and psychiatric disorders conditions, in addition to exposures and genotypes and thus constitute one of foremost resources for our research.
Expertise
Participants are the departments of Biological Psychology (Dorret Boomsma), Psychiatry (Jan Smit cs.), Pathology (Gerrit Meijer), Clinical Chemistry (Rienk Blankenstein) and Clinical Genetics (Peter Heutink). All these departments have a long standing expertise in biobanking of epidemiological studies and employ specific staff. Moreover the departments have recently made new investments in data collection, sample processing and storage of samples. Moreover currently there is an initiative within the VUmc to synchronize and centralize these activities shortly.
Facility
Resources will be used in particular to accommodate:
- An infrastructure for already available samples, collected in large-scale studies. A requirement is that in addition to population based, these samples should come from well characterized populations including follow-up data on lifestyle and other information.
- Processing of samples (DNA isolation, quantification, preparation for competitive initiatives; RNA isolation)
- Proof of principle studies (expression, proteomics and epigenetics studies)
- Support in sample management and sample tracking
- Support for linking phenotype and genotype databases
- Support that will increase opportunities to obtain large (inter)national grants
