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photo by SomaLogic, Inc
A new partnership between Oxford Population Health and SomaLogic, Inc. recently enabled the analysis of 4,000 plasma samples from the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB), one of the world’s largest prospective studies.
Chronic non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, are the major causes of premature death and disability worldwide. The causes of these complex diseases are linked to lifestyle, social and environmental factors, chronic infection, and genetics. Proteomic analysis can help us to improve our understanding of how and why non-communicable diseases develop by building an in-depth picture of the proteins contained within our cells that may act as biomarkers, or biological indicators, or potential therapeutic targets, for disease.
The SomaLogic team were able to carry out a proteomic analysis on an initial 4,000 samples from China Kadoorie Biobank participants. The results have provided more than 28 million data points that can be analysed alongside other available genetic, lifestyle, anthropometric, and health outcome data. This data will be used to address a range of research questions that will help us to improve our understanding of why some people develop disease, enhance our ability to predict how likely it is that a person will develop disease, and guide the development and evaluation of new treatments.
Professor Zhengming Chen, Richard Peto Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford Population Health and UK-Principal Investigator of the China Kadoorie Biobank, said “The large-scale application of proteomics assays in big population biobanks such as CKB will be a game changer. Building on the experience gained in these initial 4,000 samples, we will seek to extend the use of the proteomic assay to a much larger number of samples in the near future.”