Why do some people become frail as they age while others do not? A life course approach to identifying genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk factors for frailty.
Description: Frailty has been described as the most problematic expression of population aging. Although progress has been made in understanding its risk factors and antecedents, the causal factors are still unknown. This project uses a longitudinal data to identify the genetic, epigenetic and traditional, i.e., lifestyle and environment -related risk factors for frailty. A co-twin control approach will be used to infer causality in the associations. By combining the genetic risk profile to traditional risk factors, the ultimate goal is to define a set of markers for individualized risk stratification and intervention. Exceptionally large samples consisting of the UK Biobank and the Swedish and Danish Twin Registries will be used. The aims will be achieved using a variety of bioinformatic and statistical approaches, such as genome-wide genetic and epigenetic analyses, latent growth curves and twin modeling. Work with the epigenetic analyses and growth models for the longitudinal frailty trajectories has already been started; these analyses are expected to be completed within the next two years. The genome-wide genetic analyses and analyses on the heritability of frailty (twin modeling) are expected to be completed in years 2 and 3. Part of the work is intended for a prospective PhD student. The project has the benefit of the involvement of collaborators with long-standing expertise in the aforementioned methods, access to high-performance computing clusters and longitudinal samples.
Funder: Vetenskapsrådet
Amount: SEK 6,000,000
Funding type: fellowship
Funder scheme: Grant for positions or stipends
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2022-12-31
Investigator: Juulia Jylhävä
Institution: Karolinska Institutet
Funded outputs count: 38
Funder award ID: 2018-02077
OpenAlex ID: G1822567099