Data Recovery In Glasgow

Generation Scot

Generation Scotland is a Biobank, a library of biological samples and information on health and lifestyle from thousands of volunteer donors in Scotland.

The aim of Generation Scotland is to create an ethically sound family- and population-based collection of genetic, medical and lifestyle data which can be used as a resource by scientific researchers to tackle a variety of important healthcare issues, such as our susceptibility to common diseases and our response to medicines.[1][2] This kind of work has far-reaching implications including earlier and more accurate diagnosis, improved understanding of disease mechanisms and a reduction in drug-related side effects.[3][4]

Generation Scotland’s biggest project, the Scottish Family Health Study, is recruiting thousands of family groups. Studying families rather than unrelated individuals increases the chances of detecting the genes that influence disease risk and response to drugs.[1]

Background

The main focus of Generation Scotland is on identifying the inherited factors, or genes, that influence our risk of being affected by a number of common causes of ill health, including heart disease, diabetes, mental illness, obesity, stroke and diseases of the bones and joints. Our genes also influence how we respond to different medicines. The basic idea behind Generation Scotland is that by comparing the genes in large groups of people (such as patients and healthy people, or people who respond well to a medicine and people who do not) researchers will be able to work out which genetic factors contribute to our chances of becoming unwell or of suffering from drug-related side-effects.

Common disorders such as heart disease and diabetes are significant causes of chronic ill health and death in middle-aged people.[5] Adverse reactions to prescription drugs delay recovery and drain healthcare resources.[6] Generation Scotland is therefore addressing issues of major public health importance.

Disease risk and drug response are examples of complex traits. Instead of having a single cause, complex traits typically result from a combination of factors including genes, environment and lifestyle (diet, smoking history, exercise patterns, use of other medicines etc) [3]. Until very recently there was no efficient way of systematically searching for the genetic factors that underlie complex diseases. However the completion of the Human Genome Project, coupled with technological advances that allow rapid comparison of thousands of DNA samples, means that the necessary methods are now available.[3][7]

Detection of the relevant genetic factors depends on statistical analysis of data obtained by comparing the DNA of people with and without a particular trait (cases and controls, respectively). This is a powerful approach which has already yielded considerable success.[8] However thousands of individuals must be recruited for such case-control studies to generate meaningful results and this is often beyond the means of smaller research groups.

Generation Scotland has put in place the considerable infrastructure required to recruit the necessary numbers of participants, to collect, process and securely store the associated biological samples and data, and to make these available to the wider research community. Scientists who are planning research into the causes or treatments of common complex diseases and who have appropriate approval from a Research Ethics Committee can apply to use the resource in accordance with Generation Scotland’s Access Policy. All data generated in this way will be fed back to Generation Scotland and will in turn form part or the resource.

Funding

Generation Scotland is funded by

a Strategic Research Development Grant of £1.79m from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (2003)
a Genetics in Healthcare Initiative grant of £4.4m from the Scottish Government Health Directorates (2004)
a grant of £170,209 from the Chief Scientist Office Biomedical and Therapeutic Research Committee (2004)
a grant of £3.8m from the Scottish Government Health Directorates (2008)

Collaborators

Generation Scotland is a multi-institution, cross-disciplinary collaboration involving

the people of Scotland
all five Scottish University Medical Schools
- University of Aberdeen
- University of Dundee
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Glasgow
- University of St. Andrews
the Information Services Division of NHS National Services Scotland
the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh
the MRC Social and Public Health Science Unit, Glasgow
the National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh and Glasgow
NHS Scotland
the Scottish School of Primary Care
the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility, Edinburgh
UK Biobank

References

^ a b Smith BH, Campbell H, Blackwood D, et al. (2006). “Generation Scotland: the Scottish Family Health Study; a new resource for researching genes and heritability”. BMC Medical Genetics 7: 74. doi:10.1186/1471-2350-7-74. PMID 17014726.
^ a b Macleod AK, Liewald DC, McGilchrist MM, Morris AD, Kerr SM, Porteous DJ (February 2009). “Some principles and practices of genetic biobanking studies”. The European Respiratory Journal 33 (2): 419–25. doi:10.1183/09031936.00043508. PMID 19181915.
^ a b c Lango H, Weedon MN (January 2008). “What will whole genome searches for susceptibility genes for common complex disease offer to clinical practice?”. Journal of Internal Medicine 263 (1): 16–27. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2796.2007.01895.x (inactive 2009-07-08). PMID 18088250.
^ McCarthy MI, Abecasis GR, Cardon LR, et al. (May 2008). “Genome-wide association studies for complex traits: consensus, uncertainty and challenges”. Nature Reviews. Genetics 9 (5): 356–69. doi:10.1038/nrg2344. PMID 18398418.
^ Lopez AD, Mathers CD, Ezzati M, Jamison DT, Murray CJ (May 2006). “Global and regional burden of disease and risk factors, 2001: systematic analysis of population health data”. Lancet 367 (9524): 1747–57. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68770-9. PMID 16731270.
^ Kongkaew C, Noyce PR, Ashcroft DM (July 2008). “Hospital admissions associated with adverse drug reactions: a systematic review of prospective observational studies”. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 42 (7): 1017–25. doi:10.1345/aph.1L037. PMID 18594048.
^ Hirschhorn JN, Daly MJ (February 2005). “Genome-wide association studies for common diseases and complex traits”. Nature Reviews. Genetics 6 (2): 95–108. doi:10.1038/nrg1521. PMID 15716906.
^ Burton, Paul R. (June 2007). “Genome-wide association study of 14,000 cases of seven common diseases and 3,000 shared controls”. Nature 447 (7145): 661–78. doi:10.1038/nature05911. PMID 17554300.
^ Haddow, Gill (2008). “Generation Scotland: consulting publics and specialists at an early stage in a genetic database’s development”. Critical Public Health 18: 139. doi:10.1080/09581590701824086.

About the Author

Theron M. Claude is President of MedicalJobClassifieds.com, the webs leading source of both medical jobs and healthcare talent. Find medical jobs, healthcare jobs in Nursing, Rehab Therapy, Radiology, Allied Health, specializing in MD jobs. The Web’s #1 Healthcare Medical Job site. If you’re looking for healthcare jobs or medical jobs, look no further.

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