Grant: Project Grant

Aortic valve disease is the most common form of heart valve disease in the developed world and a major burden to society. With the ageing of the Canadian population, aortic valve disease is expected to become increasingly common. Currently, over 2.5 million individuals in North America have aortic stenosis, which is a narrowing of the aortic valve, the main valve of the heart, and leads to symptoms of heart failure and sometimes death. Despite the major importance of this disease worldwide, there are currently no medical treatments to prevent the development of aortic stenosis. The lack of preventative treatments stems in large part to a poor understanding of the causes of this disease. Using cutting-edge genetic technologies, we plan to build on our recent genetic discovery linking an unusual type of cholesterol to this disease. In this proposed project, we will scan the entire genome of more than 90,000 individuals with and without aortic stenosis to try to pinpoint regions in the DNA that may predispose to the development of this disease. This may provide clues for why certain people develop this disease. We hope to use these clues to help develop drugs that could be useful to treat this disease. Using this strategy, we have already identified one potential new therapy that we are testing in a small study to evaluate whether this can stop the disease process. If successful, our program would be notable in several ways. First, it will represent the largest study of this type worldwide. Second, we expect to glean major insights into the biology of aortic stenosis that may help us identify a treatment. Ultimately, a new treatment for aortic stenosis would significantly impact the cardiovascular health of many individuals in Canada and throughout the world.