Grant: Project Grant

The cardiovascular and nervous systems (heart and brain) are linked, but the relationships between the two systems are largely unexplored. Adult-onset conditions of the heart and the brain affect women and men differently, suggesting that there could be biological differences in these conditions between the two sexes. Here, we will use genomic data from large databases to detect biological differences between women and men related to the physiology of heart and brain diseases. The study of genetics in large research cohorts offers a powerful approach to help understand the biological causes of disease. Our group has recently developed a bioinformatics tool (ExPheWas) available to the scientific community presenting results of 26,616 protein coding and lincRNA genes with 1746 clinical measures from a large cohort study (the UK Biobank). Here, we will improve on the tool to include sex-sensitive analyses and results. We will study the sex-specific biological factors involved in cognitive function and cardiovascular diseases using methods (Mendelian randomization) that can help in the identification and development of new therapeutic approaches. The developed tools and results will be made publicly available and accessible through a user-friendly web interface to promote research on sex differences in genomics. The project will provide valuable results to support sex-aware therapeutic development for cognitive dysfunction and cardiovascular diseases.