COPD AND GENDER: A SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACH
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Karolinska institutet - Institutionen för medicin, Solna |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 2 628 000 |
| Project duration | December 2008 - June 2012 |
| Status | Completed |
Important results from the project
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a global pandemic health problem, and a leading cause of death worldwide. Epidemiology studies indicate significant gender-differences in susceptibility, with post-menopausal women at greatest risk. No efficacious treatments exist to prevent the inflammatory progression of COPD, invariably leading to impaired lung function and disability. The main objective of these studies is to elucidate the pathological mechanisms of COPD.
Expected long term effects
Concerted probing of transcriptomes, proteomes, and metabolomes of the airways of both male and female patients will aid the elucidation of gender-related molecular and mechanistic differences, as well as biomarker identification. An expected secondary accomplishment will be identification of novel pharmaceutical targets for COPD. The results from this project will thus have major effects upon the field of inflammation-associated lung diseases, enabling clinicians to apply intervention at earlier stages, thereby greatly reducing the costs to society and saving lives. Most importantly, the findings from the proposed mobility will lead to understanding of gender-associated differences in the toxicological response of a major health hazard in our society, tobacco smoke, thus representing an important step towards personalized medicine.
Approach and implementation
RNA profiling will be performed in collaboration with University of California San Francisco. Furthermore, bioinformatics tools for pathway analysis provided by collaborations with Kyoto University Bioinformatics Center in Japan are vital in interpreting the omics data and increases the potential for identification and development of highly sensitive and specific biomarkers of disease.