Grant: Operating Grant: Industry-partnered Collaborative Research

Over 9 million Canadians currently have diabetes or prediabetes. In people with diabetes, heart disease is the leading cause of death and accounts for over half of all mortality. In fact, individuals with diabetes have double the risk of heart disease as compared to individuals without it. Furthermore, diabetes is the leading cause of kidney disease in Canada and also the first cause of kidney replacement therapy, also called dialysis. Despite all of this, there is currently no tool to help physicians determine which individuals with diabetes are at high risk of developing heart or kidney complications. Our project seeks to develop such tools by combining blood analysis with genetic analysis. To do so, we will use blood and genetic samples from a large clinical study of insulin (the ORIGIN trial). Our hope is that development of such tool will help provide early and maximal preventive therapy to individuals with diabetes at high risk of complications.