Major Funding For Research Into Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, UK

Main Category: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Article Date: 28 Apr 2008 - 13:00 PDT

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Researchers into abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) at the University of Leicester have received over £900,000 funding from the Wellcome Trust as part of a £30M international initiative.

The Leicester researchers are leading an international group of collaborators investigating a disease that is the eighth most common cause of death in England and Wales

Matt Bown, Lecturer in Surgery, and Rob Sayers, Professor of Vascular Surgery, at the University of Leicester's Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, together with Professor Nilesh Samani and Professor John Thompson, are carrying out genetic research into AAA, a disease that affects the main artery in the body, the abdominal aorta.

Over the past five years the Leicester research group has been working with other groups around the world (University of Leeds, University College London, St Georges University of London, Imperial College London, The Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, James Cook University, Australia and Otago Medical School, New Zealand) to collect enough DNA samples from patients with AAA to be able to carry out this project.

The funding from the Wellcome Trust is for a genetic screen for patients with the condition. This will identify the genetic variations that are associated with AAA and will aid scientists' understanding of the pathological process involved in the disease's development.

Matt Bown, Principal Applicant for the project, commented: "This research will take us closer to developing drug treatments for AAA and potentially save the lives of thousands of people each year."

In people with AAA, the diseased blood vessel becomes enlarged and weakens. When an AAA becomes very large it can rupture, resulting in catastrophic blood loss and death in the majority of people who are unfortunate enough to suffer this complication.

Matt Bown explained the significance of his research: "AAA affects 6 per cent of males over 65 years of age. The majority of deaths are due to rupture, an event that only occurs after many years of slow growth. Unfortunately the only strategy to prevent rupture is complex high-risk surgery.

"However, due to the long latent period when the aneurysm is growing and readily detectable by a simple ultrasound scan, there is an excellent opportunity to prevent the need for surgery or progression to rupture by pharmacological treatment.

"Currently no pharmacotherapeutic agent has been identified to treat aneurysms and this is partly because the exact biological processes that lead to AAA formation are unknown."

Scientists know that genetics play an important part in the development of AAA. People who have first-degree relatives with AAAs are at a higher risk of developing an AAA themselves.

Traditional methods for determining the genetic basis of diseases (linkage and candidate gene studies) have failed to identify the genetic changes that are associated with AAA. Recent technological advances now mean that it is possible to 'screen' the whole of a person's genetic code for almost all of the common variations that exist between individuals.

By comparing the patterns seen in several thousand people with and without a particular disease it is possible to identify the genes that are associated with the disease. This approach to determining the genetics of complex diseases has recently been shown to be effective and has produced results for diseases such as coronary artery disease, where Leicester have also been a leading centre and Diabetes Mellitus.

The funding from the Wellcome Trust is awarded as part of a £30M national follow-up study to the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, the largest ever study of the genetics of common disease, which was hailed as a major breakthrough in medical science in a number of prestigious journals including Nature and The Lancet.

The national study will collect DNA samples from 120,000 people, allowing researchers across the country to look at 25 diseases, as well as studying the genetics of learning in children and individuals' responses to statins. This will be one of the most ambitious studies ever undertaken, bringing together leading research groups from 16 institutions in the UK and internationally. Over the next two years it is expected to analyse as many as 120 billion pieces of genetic data in the search for the genes underlying diseases such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and asthma.

The initiative has identified a number of new genes and regions of the human genome which increase people's susceptibility to or protect them from particular diseases.

University Of Leicester

- A member of the 1994 Group of universities that share a commitment to research excellence, high quality teaching and an outstanding student experience.

- Ranked top for student satisfaction in England (jointly with Oxford) among mainstream universities (average score of 4.4 out of 5 for overall satisfaction)

- Ranked as a Top 20 university by The Sunday Times University Guide, The Guardian University Guide and the UK Good University Guide

- One of just 23 UK universities to feature in world's top 200- Shanghai Jiao Tong International Index, 2005-07.

- Ranked in top 200 world universities by the THES (Times Higher Education Supplement)

- Short listed University of the Year in 2007 by The Sunday Times and Short listed Higher Education Institution of the Year - THES awards 2005 and 2006

- Ranked top 10 in England for research impact by The Guardian

- Students' Union of the Year award 2005, short listed 2006 and 2007

Founded in 1921, the University of Leicester has 19,000 students from 136 countries. Teaching in 18 subject areas has been graded Excellent by the Quality Assurance Agency- including 14 successive scores - a consistent run of success matched by just one other UK University. Leicester is world renowned for the invention of DNA Fingerprinting by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys and houses Europe's biggest academic Space Research Centre. 90% of staff are actively engaged in high quality research and 13 subject areas have been awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level. The University's research grant income places it among the top 20 UK research universities. The University employs over 3,000 people, has an annual turnover of £184m, covers an estate of 94 hectares and is engaged in a £300m investment programme- among the biggest of any UK university.

University Of Leicester