Category Archives: Genetics

Genetics

4 new US sites added to global Parkinson’s genetics study – Parkinson’s News Today

University Hospitals (UH) healthcare system in Cleveland, Ohio, has been named one of four new sites for a Global Parkinsons Genetics Program (GP2) study that seeks to better understand Parkinsons disease in Black people, with a focus on the disorders genetic basis.

Improved knowledge of genetic variants linked to the progressive neurodegenerative disorder in this population could support the development of new treatments or the use of those being tested.

The other new sites in the Black and African American Connections to Parkinsons Disease (BLAAC PD) study, which opened in 2021, include UT Health in Houston, Texas; Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri; and the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina.

Last March, the study added Louisiana State University and the University of Florida, joining the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic, in Maryland, and two Illinois locations: Rush University and the University of Chicago.

The expansions broaden the BLAAC PD studys geographic reach and heighten representation of the diverse Black community in the U.S. They also build a foundation for greater discovery and application of findings across ancestries.

We are happy to be a part of the network of BLAAC PD sites across the U.S. and the GP2 global network in order to expand understanding of Parkinsons disease within the Black and African American communities, Camilla Kilbane, MD, director of UH Parkinsons and Movement Disorder Center, and medical director of the hospitals deep brain stimulation program, said in a press release.

We look forward to continuing to contribute to a more holistic, global understanding of Parkinsons Disease by increasing representation in our study populations and learning more about gene changes that may cause the disease.

Now part of the worlds largest Parkinsons genetics consortium, UH will receive funding for study visit expenses, supplies, community engagement strategy support, staffing support, and participant incentives.

Environmental as well as genetic factors are believed to contribute to the development of Parkinsons, a disease marked by movement difficulties and a progressive loss of coordination. GP2 seeks to address the fact that genetics research in Parkinsons has primarily focused on individuals of European descent. The study is part of the Aligning Science Across Parkinsons initiative, which aims to foster collaboration and resources to understand the underlying causes of Parkinsons.

In the U.S., the incidence of Parkinsons in Black people is estimated to be 23 of every 100,000, compared with 54 per 100,000 white people. The prevalence of the disorder is 50% lower in Black compared with white individuals. However, it is possible that this represents an underestimation of the true prevalence and incidence rate of Parkinsons among these racial groups.

Factors contributing to the disparities could include genetic or biological differences as well as systemic and structural healthcare factors such as the under-reporting of symptoms, patient mistrust in healthcare, and access to health insurance.

The BLAAC PD study intends to uncover the commonalities and differences between genetic lineages among Parkinsons patients. It is seeking adult participants from the Black or African American community, including patients and those without Parkinsons. Volunteers with a family history of Parkinsons are also eligible.

The study calls for blood or saliva samples to be collected one time from individuals in a single visit, along with demographics and medical and family histories. The samples will undergo DNA testing and be shared, along with BLAAC PD data, with the GP2 research community.

For the sake of participant privacy, only de-identified data will be shared. The goal of sharing is to facilitate the discovery of overlapping as well as population-specific variants linked to Parkinsons.

Study participants will be compensated but no medications will be provided. There is no cost to join BLAAC PD and also no charge to health insurance.

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4 new US sites added to global Parkinson's genetics study - Parkinson's News Today

Genetics

Nobel Laureate and World-Renowned Geneticist to Speak at 2024 Commencement – News Center – Feinberg News Center

Michael S. Brown, MD, director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics and the Regental Professor at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical School, will address graduates and their guests at Feinbergs 165th commencement ceremony on Monday, May 13.

Brown, along with his long-time colleague, Joseph Goldstein, MD, Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, discovered the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor, which controls cholesterol in blood and in cells, and showed that mutations in this receptor cause Familial Hypercholesterolemia, a disorder that leads to premature heart attack.

Their work laid the groundwork for the development of statins that block cholesterol synthesis, increase LDL receptors, lower blood cholesterol and prevent heart attacks. Their discoveries earned them the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1985 and the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1988, among many other awards.

Brown earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1966 and completed an internship and internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1968. He then became a Clinical Associate at the National Institutes of Health and in 1969, he joined the laboratory of Earl Stadtman at the National Institutes of Health as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1976, Brown was named the Paul J Thomas Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Genetic Diseases at UT Southwestern Medical School.

Brown and Goldstein have shared a laboratory for more than 50 years. The two scientists worked with scientists at Merck to develop the first statin drugs, which cause the liver to produce more LDL receptors, thereby removing more LDL from blood and lowering LDL levels. In 1987, Merck received FDA approval for the first statin drug, which was shown to effectively treat high blood cholesterol, reduce heart attacks and extended survival in adults with coronary heart disease. Today, statins are taken by more than 20 million Americans.

Brown is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in London. Brown served for 16 years on the Board of Directors of Pfizer and is currently director of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, where he chairs the Technology Committee.

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Nobel Laureate and World-Renowned Geneticist to Speak at 2024 Commencement - News Center - Feinberg News Center

Genetics

First report on the molecular phylogenetics and population genetics of Aedes aegypti in Iran – Parasites & Vectors – Parasites & Vectors

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First report on the molecular phylogenetics and population genetics of Aedes aegypti in Iran - Parasites & Vectors - Parasites & Vectors

Genetics

What can your DNA say about your risk of opioid addiction? – National Geographic

A new test suggests that, with a bit of your DNA, it can help identify whether you have a genetic susceptibility to opioid use disorder.

Aided by an influx of fentanyl and other substances, the number of drug overdose deaths continues to rise in the United States, a problem that only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tallied 109,540 drug overdose deaths, most of which involved opioids.

In December 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved AvertD (pronounced averted) for patients 18 and older who had never used opioids and were expecting to be treated for acute, not chronic, pain. It is the first genetic test to identify those at risk for opioid use to gain approvaland the only FDA-approved polygenic risk test for any psychiatric condition to date.

(Could monoclonal antibodies be the solution to the opioid crisis?)

The opioid crisis, one of the most profound public health issues facing the United States, calls for innovative measures to prevent, diagnose and treat opioid use disorder, including to assess the risk of developing the disorder, said the FDA in a statement announcing the decision. This approval represents another step forward in the FDA's efforts to prevent new cases of OUD.

But some experts in the psychiatric community have expressed skepticism that any polygenic testmeaning a test that measures small inputs from many genescan meaningfully identify people at high risk for psychiatric conditions like opioid addiction.

Psychiatric geneticist Arpana Agrawal from Washington University in St. Louis says that although genetics is important in understanding addiction, researchers still dont know enough to predict who is at risk of addiction from genetics alone. Patrick Sullivan, a psychiatrist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and principal investigator of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, agrees. DNA only explains a small piece of why someone becomes addicted to opioids or develops an illness like schizophrenia.

Its not as straightforward as we want to think, Agrawal says.

Still, these and other experts National Geographic spoke to agree that polygenic risk tests offer promise for a range of other diseases from cardiovascular disease to Type 2 diabetes.

Before the human genome was sequenced, geneticists focused much of their work on conditions caused by mutations in a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis and hemophilia. The work was groundbreaking, but it didnt address the more common conditions like hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Rather than a devastating impact from a single gene, many chronic diseases result from a complex interaction of environmental factors (such as pollution, childhood trauma, and food accessibility) and small inputs from hundreds, even thousands, of gene variants. Individually, the effect of each gene variant was insignificant. But scientists like Sekar Kathiresan, a cardiologist and geneticist who founded Verve Therapeutics, believed that all of these tiny influences could add up to something major.

(How personalized medicine is transforming your health care.)

His teams first breakthrough came with a March 2008 publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, which combined the impacts of nine genetic variants into a unified genetic risk for cardiovascular disease. Kathiresan and colleagues could combine the tiny impacts of many genes across a persons entire complement of DNA into a single assessment of genetic risk.

It was a proof of concept that maybe this is a key part of how disease risk comes about, Kathiresan says.

Scientists soon found an increasing number of genetic variants that influenced cardiovascular disease risk, making polygenic risk scores even better at identifying people whose genes predisposed them to heart disease.

Those people were treated more aggressively with statins, says Robert Green, a medical geneticist at Harvard Medical School, director of the Genomes2People Research Program at Mass General Brigham, and a paid consultant to Allelica, a company that sells polygenic risk score tests. Subsequent studies showed this likely helped lower their risk of heart attack and stroke.

Scientists began looking into other applications for polygenic risk scores. For some conditions, such as diabetes, Alzheimers disease, and breast and prostate cancers, scientists were able to calculate polygenic risk scores that were especially useful for screening and preventing disease, according to Kathiresan.

In other areas, however, researchers began running into problemsparticularly as they attempted to identify the DNA variations that could contribute to conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and opioid use disorder.

(What exactly is DNA? Here's what you need to know.)

Study after study has shown that risk for many mental health conditions is highly heritable, and people diagnosed with them have an array of genetic variants that differ significantly from those without.

But whats often more challenging than calculating a specific risk score is determining how useful it will be in medical practice. Take height, says Sullivan. The average man is significantly taller than the average woman, yet there are lots of short men and tall women. As a result, you cant accurately guess a persons sex based on their height, Sullivan says. Similarly, scientists might be able to detect genetic differences between those who have a psychiatric condition and those who dont, but theres too much overlap between the two groups to tell them apart.

Scientists are still not sure why. One possibility is that they dont yet know enough about the underlying genetics of psychiatric conditions to be able to use a test to identify high and low genetic risk. The other possibility is that the genetic differences between people at high and low risk just arent quite different enough to be medically useful.

Additionally, individuals of white European ancestry are disproportionately represented in most genetics studies, which means researchers know lessoften much lessabout the genes of people with other ethnicities, according to a 2019 study. This makes it harder to calculate a polygenic risk score for these populations, says Sullivan.

Nor do polygenic risk scores measure the full breadth of a persons risk of developing a disease. A polygenic risk score cant account for the myriad environmental factors that often have a greater impact than genetics on who gets sick. And a persons environment is particularly malleable, which provides more opportunities to shift the needle in the direction of health.

DNA is not destiny, says Kathiresan. It's one component, and it's not deterministic.

Still, the promise of a test that could prevent someone from getting addicted to opioids has been alluring to many scientists.

Keri Donaldsonfounder and CEO of Solvd Health, the manufacturer of AvertDfelt that artificial intelligence algorithms were up to the task of identifying individuals at high genetic risk of developing opioid use disorder.

Instead of isolating specific genetic variants to calculate someones risk, Donaldson asked a computer to determine the genetic differences between individuals who misused opiates and those who didnt. The study analyzed millions of points along the genome and identified 15 genetic variants that could help distinguish between these two groups.

The collective impact of these variants is calculated using a mathematical model that gives each test-taker a score between zero and 1. A score greater than 0.33 indicates an elevated genetic risk for opioid misuse. The higher the score, the greater the risk. That information forms the basis of AvertD.

But when Agrawals team tried to use artificial intelligence to predict opioid use disorder risk, they were unable to replicate the results. She says researchers need more diverse, larger studies to be able to identify it with a test.

Anytime we look at these polygenic factors, we have to consider that they're only ever going to be part of the picture. Environmental factors are going to be the other half, Agrawal says.

Donaldson agrees that while AvertD isnt a crystal ball, not providing that information is not the answer.

He defends the science behind the test, citing one study that shows AvertDs algorithms were able to distinguish between individuals with and without opioid use disorder over 80 percent of the time. Opioid use disorder is a complex trait, both nature and nurture. Were informing on the genetic portion of it, he says.

As these tests gain popularity, clinicians will have to learn how to interpret these results with their patients. Donaldson says that prescriber education is key.

Can we help individual patients, as well as prescribers, understand risk differently? That was the question we started on, Donaldson says.

The scores cant be read like a weather forecast, he says. An AvertD score of 0.5, for example, doesnt mean you have a 50/50 chance of becoming addicted to opioids. Rather, it means you have an above average risk and might want to pursue pain management options that dont involve opiates.

With AvertD risk scores in hand, physicians and patients can engage in informed conversations regarding opioid sparing techniques or alternative pain management options, he says.

Yet Agrawal worries about what this might mean for people whose tests suggest they are at high genetic risk of opioid addiction. She argues that many doctors still dont understand how to manage pain without opioidswhich could lead to needless suffering.

Instead of identifying opioid addiction, she prefers to focus on how we can make an easier pathway to recovery or safety, she says.

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What can your DNA say about your risk of opioid addiction? - National Geographic

Genetics

The Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study enables generational genetic discoveries – Nature.com

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The Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study enables generational genetic discoveries - Nature.com

Genetics

Invitae Partners with BridgeBio Pharma to Harness Genetic Insights for the Discovery of Rare Disease Therapeutics – PR Newswire

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Invitae(NYSE: NVTA), a leading medical genetics company, today announced a partnership with BridgeBio Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: BBIO), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on genetic diseases and cancers, designed to advance genetics-based drug discovery for rare diseases. The goal of the collaboration is to generate new insights focused on genetic modifiers and the discovery of novel therapeutic targets for rare diseases and other unmet medical needs.

The agreement expands upon the longstanding partnership between the two companies to combine the strengths of BridgeBio's deep expertise in rare disease research and development of therapeutics, and Invitae's rare disease enriched dataset and analytical capabilities. Invitae has provided clinical testing for more than 4 million patients, generating an extensive dataset that is uniquely positioned to deepen insights on patients with genetic-driven disease.

"Invitae is on a mission to bring comprehensive genetic information into mainstream medicine to improve healthcare for billions of people. By leveraging de-identified genetic information from patients, our researchers can gain a much deeper understanding of the genetic basis of a disease," said W. Michael Korn, M.D., chief medical officer at Invitae. "Through this partnership, we aim to support the development of novel therapeutic targets and advance transformative medicines for patients with rare disease."

Access to large genetic and clinical datasets are needed to advance research and discover novel drug targets and are often hard to find for researchers.

"We chose to partner with Invitae because of the unique scale and depth of their dataset on affected populations. Patients with severe and highly penetrant dominant disorders are not represented in general population studies, making it nearly impossible to find data anywhere except a disease-focused cohort like Invitae's," said Sun-Gou Ji, Ph.D., vice president of computational genetics at BridgeBio. "These rich data sources will continue to offer researchers a mechanism to get a much deeper understanding of genetic variations and their effect on diseases."

Together Invitae and BridgeBio will translate genetic and phenotypic data into insights to improve therapeutic discovery and design for patients with rare disease. Invitae will analyze longitudinal medical phenotypes in linked genetic and clinical datasets, in order to understand the burden of disease in a real-world setting. Harnessing BridgeBio's disease expertise, Invitae will leverage AI-based phenotypic clustering to identify subgroups of patients based on their genetic and phenotypic profiles. Invitae will also conduct association testing to identify potential genetic modifiers of disease phenotype, severity, onset and progression.

For more information about Invitae's solutions for biopharma partners, visit https://www.invitae.com/en/partners/biopharma.

About InvitaeInvitae (NYSE: NVTA) is a leading medical genetics company trusted by millions of patients and their providers to deliver timely genetic information using digital technology. We aim to provide accurate and actionable answers to strengthen medical decision-making for individuals and their families. Invitae's genetics experts apply a rigorous approach to data and research, serving as the foundation of their mission to bring comprehensive genetic information into mainstream medicine to improve healthcare for billions of people.

To learn more, visit invitae.comand follow for updates on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn@Invitae.

About BridgeBioBridgeBio is a biotechnology company on a mission to discover and deliver transformative medicines for patients with genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers.

Safe Harbor StatementThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relatingto the company's goals with respect to the partnership; the intended structure and potential benefits of the partnership; the company's beliefs regarding its dataset and analytical capabilities; and the company's belief that the partnership may support the development of novel therapeutic targets and advance transformative medicines for patients with rare disease. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the company's ability to grow its business in a cost-efficient manner; the company's history of losses; the company's ability to maintain important customer relationships; the company's ability to compete; the company's need to scale its infrastructure in advance of demand for its tests and to increase demand for its tests; the risk that the company may not obtain or maintain sufficient levels of reimbursement for its tests; the applicability of clinical results to actual outcomes; risks associated with litigation; the company's ability to use rapidly changing genetic data to interpret test results accurately and consistently; security breaches, loss of data and other disruptions; laws and regulations applicable to the company's business; and the other risks set forth in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risks set forth in the company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof, and Invitae Corporation disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Invitae PR contact:Renee Kelley [emailprotected]

SOURCE Invitae Corporation

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Invitae Partners with BridgeBio Pharma to Harness Genetic Insights for the Discovery of Rare Disease Therapeutics - PR Newswire

Genetics

Rare disorder causing extra fingers and toes identified – EurekAlert

image:

The foot of one of the children in the study, showing an extra toe

Credit: University of Leeds

A rare disorder which causes babies to be born with extra fingers and toes and a range of birth defects has been identified in new research co-led by the University of Leeds.

The disorder, which has not yet been named, is caused by a genetic mutation in a gene called MAX. As well as extra digits polydactyly - it leads to a range of symptoms relating to ongoing brain growth, such as autism.

The research marks the first time this genetic link has been identified. It has also found a molecule that could potentially be used to treat some of the neurological symptoms and prevent any worsening of their condition. However, more research is needed to test this molecule before it can be used as a treatment.

Published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the paper focuses on three individuals with a rare combination of physical traits, namely polydactyly, and a much larger than average head circumference known as macrocephaly.

The individuals share some other characteristics, including delayed development of their eyes which results in problems with their vision early in life.

The researchers compared the DNA of these individuals and found they all carried the shared genetic mutation causing their birth defects.

The latest research was co-led by Dr James Poulter from the University of Leeds; Dr Pierre Lavigne at Universit de Sherbrooke in Qubec and Professor Helen Firth at Cambridge University.

Dr Poulter, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and University Academic Fellow in Molecular Neuroscience, said: Currently there are no treatments for these patients. This means that our research into rare conditions is not only important to help us understand them better, but also to identify potential ways to treat them.

In this case, we found a drug that is already in clinical trials for another disorder meaning we could fast track this for these patients if our research finds the drug reverses some of the effects of the mutation.

It also means that other patients with a similar combination of features can be tested to see if they have the same variant we have identified in our study.

The study team has highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary research into rare diseases in giving understanding and hope of a treatment to families who often face many years of uncertainty about their childs condition and prognosis.

Dr Poulter added: These are often under-represented conditions that have a huge impact on patients and their families. These families go through a long and complex diagnostic odyssey. The time from their first doctors visit as babies to getting a diagnosis can take more than 10 years.

It is important that these patients and their families discover the cause of their condition and if they can access a therapy based on their genetic diagnosis, that could be life changing.

Dr Lavigne said: Finding out the impact of the mutation on the function of MAX is the first step towards the development of a treatment for these children.

The researchers now plan to look for additional patients with mutations in MAX to better understand the disorder and investigate whether the potential treatment improves the symptoms caused by the mutation.

The research was carried out in collaboration with the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, the NHS Wales All Wales Medical Genomics Service and Radboud University Medical Center, The Netherlands.

It used data from the Deciphering Developmental Disorders study, which was led by the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Professor Firth said: The DDD study recruited across the UK from 2011-2015. Its exciting that in 2024, were still making new discoveries. This new finding is a diagnosis for our DDD patients. Furthermore, this publication will now enable other children worldwide to be diagnosed with this novel disorder.

Further information

A recurrent de novo MAX p.Arg60Gln variant causes a syndromic overgrowth disorder through differential expression of c-Myc target genes is published in American Journal of Human Genetics.

Email University of Leeds press officer Lauren Ballinger on l.ballinger@leeds.ac.uk with media enquiries.

This work was funded by a UK Research & Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship to James Poulter and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research project grant (PL). The genetic sequencing was undertaken as part of the DDD (Deciphering Developmental Disorders) study which presents independent research commissioned by the Health Innovation Challenge Fund [grant number HICF-1009-003]. This study makes use of DECIPHER , which is funded by the Wellcome Trust and hosted by EMBL-EBI [grant number WT223718/Z/21/Z].

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 38,000 students from more than 150 different countries. We are renowned globally for the quality of our teaching and research.

We are a values-driven university, and we harness our expertise in research and education to help shape a better future for humanity, working through collaboration to tackle inequalities, achieve societal impact and drive change.

The University is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, and plays a significant role in the Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes. http://www.leeds.ac.uk

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American Journal of Human Genetics

A recurrent de novo MAX p.Arg60Gln variant causes a syndromic overgrowth disorder through differential expression of c-Myc target genes

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Rare disorder causing extra fingers and toes identified - EurekAlert

Genetics

Retinal OCT and Genetics Identify Links Between Ocular and Systemic Health – Photonics.com

BOSTON, Feb. 1, 2024 A study conducted by Mass Eye and Ear, the Broad Institute at MIT, and Harvard Medical School has demonstrated links between the thinning of different retinal layers and an increased risk of disease. The work used OCT retinal images and genetic data from thousands of UK Biobank participants and could serve to advance the use of OCT to predict ocular disease and inspire further research on disease prediction beyond the eye.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 44,000 UK Biobank participants who underwent OCT retinal imaging and genotyping in 2010. The participants were subsequently followed for an average of 10 years.

The team performed a cross-phenotype analysis using OCT images from the UK Biobank and identified associations between retinal layer thickness and ocular, neuropsychiatric, and cardiometabolic diseases experienced by the participants during the 10-year follow-up period.

The researchers observed a consistency between epidemiologic and genetic associations that indicated links between a thinner retinal nerve fiber layer and glaucoma, and between a thinner photoreceptor segment and age-related macular degeneration. They also linked poor cardiometabolic and pulmonary function with a thinner photoreceptor segment.

Weve come to realize recently that there is a lot more information that we can get from our retina images than we thought was possible, Zebardast said.

Previous studies have revealed links between retinal health and aging, cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, and neurological diseases such as dementia, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. Unlike earlier studies that focused on the genes associated with overall retinal health, the Mass Eye and Ear study addressed the role of the different cell layers that comprise the retina, in addition to investigating the genes that affect retinal health.

Although retinal OCT imaging is already a standard clinical procedure in ophthalmology, the researchers believe that it could be put to broader use. Further work to establish the connection between ocular and cardiometabolic health will provide more insight into the value of retinal OCT imaging as a clinical tool.

Patients come to us for their eye health, but what if we could tell them more than that, Zebardast said. What if we could use someones retinal images to tell them, You seem to have a high risk of having high blood pressure, maybe you should get screened, or maybe your primary care doctor should know about that.

The study is part of an ongoing effort at Mass Eye and Ear to identify genetic markers of glaucoma and other ocular diseases.

The research was published in Science Translational Medicine (www.doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.adg4517).

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Retinal OCT and Genetics Identify Links Between Ocular and Systemic Health - Photonics.com