The Veterans Administration www.va.gov will be doing new studies using genetic information from the VA’s Million Veteran Program (MVP) www.research.va.gov/MVP/default.cfm to find the answers to key questions on heart disease, kidney disease, and substance use.
MVP has enrolled more than 390,000 veterans and is now the nation’s largest database linking genetic, clinical, lifestyle, and military exposure information. As part of a beta test for data access, the newly funding studies are among the first to use MVP data to find the answers on pressing questions on veterans’ health, MVP-based studies on PTSD, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
The new research specifically includes the understudied African American and Hispanic veteran populations, which tie into the broader nation Precision Medicine Initiative as announced by President Obama.
The new studies involving consortiums of VA researchers and university colleagues will explore specific questions related to chronic illnesses common among veterans. They will also establish new methods for securely linking MVP data with other sources of health information.
The new studies include:
- Researchers at the Atlanta VA Medical Center www.atlanta.va.gov and the Boston VA Health Care System www.boston.va.gov are going study cardiovascular risk factors. Researchers will probe the genes that influence how obesity and lipid levels affect heart risk. Using MVP data, the team will look at whether genetic factors differ among African Americans and Hispanics
- The research team at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System www.connecticut.va.gov and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center www.philadelphia.va.gov will examine the genetic risk factors for chronic use of alcohol, tobacco, opioids and the dangerous use of all three together
- VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System www.tennesseevalley.va.gov researchers will focus on how genes affect the risk and progression of kidney disease. The goal is to examine how patients with diabetes who often develop kidney problems respond differently to the drug metformin, based on their genetic profile. The project will look at the genetics of hypertension a major risk factor for kidney disease
- The VA Palo Alto Health Care System www.paloalto.va.gov and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center will enlist a team of researchers from five VA regions and two universities to explore the role of genetics in obesity, diabetes, and abnormal lipid levels as drivers of heart disease