By identifying biomarkers early on, it is possible to prevent or mitigate diseases. These biomarker panels can be implemented in healthcare to sharpen and simplify diagnostics, including early detection of disease resulting in effective intervention.
Precision medicine
The future of healthcare is moving towards the use of individualised treatments and screening strategies that are tailored to the unique profile of the individual. This requires healthcare providers to be able to analyse the patient's genes and the various biomarkers present in the blood.
Using a simple blood test to detect disease at an early stage is not only very cost-effective but also an effective way to reduce mortality. The accuracy can be even better if the patient's other environmental risk and health factors are also taken into account.
Possibilities
In Västerbotten, high quality samples have been collected since the 1980s in association with the Västerbotten health surveys. Sampling has been carried out in a standardised way, with freezing within one hour and storage in low temperature freezers. In total, samples have been collected from 134,000 unique individuals with no previously known disease. Around 59,000 have also donated samples on 2 or more occasions, making a total of around a quarter of a million blood samples in low temperature freezers.
Within the framework of the national strategy for Life Science, Umeå University is collaborating with, among others, Region Västerbotten and the Regional Cancer Centre North, to use existing biobanks in Västerbotten County to strengthen life science and improve the health of the population.
The PREDICT structure provides a cost-effective combination of existing resources with multiple case sets against a common set of controls. Information on the cases and controls will be further enriched by integrating data from several mature cohorts with long follow-up, such as imaging; blood and tissue sampling at cancer diagnosis (U-CAN); phenotype data on lung and cardiovascular disease including imaging (SCAPIS); memory, ageing and brain imaging (Betula); cardiovascular screening and vascular ultrasound (VIPVIZA).
Together, these biobanks create a unique resource in terms of size, lifespan and access to repeated samples for individuals, and place Västerbotten in a strategic position for world-class research in precision medicine and early disease detection.
Co-benefits
The testbed will develop combined models for disease risk prediction. Blood samples from repeated occasions over time, to identify and validate promising biomarkers and investigate how biomarker levels change over time towards diagnosis.
The identified biomarker panels can also provide a platform for randomised clinical trials that can be used to improve patient treatment and reduce the cost of care.
