About PREDICT

The overall goal is to use biomarkers to increase the possibility of implementing preventive measures that can improve people's health and quality of life.

As a part of this, we will characterise a large number of banked blood samples, about 15,000 control individuals as well as about 25,000 case individuals, using -omics methods, thereby converting the biobank into a database that also includes associated questionnaire and phenotype data.

The controls are people with no known disease, and the cases are people with diagnosed disease. The selection of individuals for inclusion will be weighted to prioritise individuals already in overlapping study cohorts, thereby increasing the amount of existing phenotype and measurement data. Some overlapping studies also include blood samples taken at and after diagnosis.

The aim is for the research database to be studied to understand many diseases and to be able to use the same data for many questions, also reducing the risk of running out of collected samples. The database will be accessible to registered researchers via a login to a graphical interface.

PREDICT has three aims

1. Studying biomarkers - substances in the blood, such as proteins, degradants or genetic variations - to assess increased risk of future morbidity. Finding biomarkers at an early stage, and linking them to information from other sources, makes it possible to detect whether a person is at risk of becoming ill. This will also allow for early detection of disease in the future, allowing for effective interventions such as medical treatment or specific follow-up.
2. Identifying diseases before diagnosis, to understand how diseases develop. Some serious diseases currently have very limited treatment options. By understanding the progression, we can find new targets for treatment.
3. To study co-morbidity, i.e. the factors that cause us to suffer from several diseases and how different diseases affect each other.

Numerous diseases can be studied

The collected biomarker information, together with survey or clinical data, can be used for both national and international research. Various diseases can be studied, but the main ones are diabetes, cancer, severe infections, cardiovascular diseases and diseases of the nervous system.

The research may also address the effects of the environment on health and the hereditary causes of various diseases. In the long term, research in collaboration with companies may be relevant, for example to develop drugs or diagnostic tests.

Background

Early detection of disease is important to provide the right medicine and intervention to the right patient, thereby increasing survival and quality of life in the population.

To understand how early disease can be detected, blood samples from patients taken before diagnosis are needed. Thanks to a sample collection built up over the last 35 years and associated data with careful cataloguing of clinical data, we now have an opportunity to conduct world-unique studies.