NHMRC funds extension to ageing-related disease risk research
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has awarded a $2.1 million Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies grant to Professor Zoe McQuilten from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine to further her research on clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), a novel risk factor for blood cancers and cardiovascular disease in older people.
A sub-study of the landmark Australian-US ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) study, Professor McQuilten and her team established the largest, longitudinal cohort study of CHIP in initially healthy older people. The NHMRC grant will now allow for the extension of the cohort study to include an assessment of CHIP measures at a third point in time, or nine years after entry into the main study, and for serial inflammatory cytokines to be followed up over the longer term.
CHIP refers to the presence of a clone of blood cells harbouring blood cancer-associated mutations without any evidence of haematological disease. Despite evidence of a causal link between CHIP and disease development through altered expression of inflammatory cytokines, the role of testing, monitoring or treatment of CHIP in clinical practice is still unknown. CHIP measures are undertaken in blood samples that ASPREE participants donate to the ASPREE Ageing Biobank.
The study results should have direct and immediate clinical implications, informing the role of serial monitoring of CHIP to predict disease risk, and to select people for prevention intervention trials. The study will lead to new insights into what lifestyle, environmental, comorbid and other factors drive clonal expansion, and therefore, the extent to which the impacts of these factors are mediated through CHIP effects on cancer and cardiovascular disease risk.
“In otherwise healthy individuals, acquired genetic mutations that are normally associated with leukaemia and other blood cancers, can be detected in the blood or bone marrow,” said Professor McQuilten. “The presence of these mutations is more common with increasing age and has been associated with a number of diseases that are common in older persons. Thanks to the NHMRC grant, we can now study how common this condition is and its consequences for health outcomes within a large clinical trial of otherwise healthy participants over 70 years of age.”
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