NEW YORK – The BioMed X Institute has partnered with the government of Barbados to conduct a pilot study on the treatment of cardiometabolic diseases in individuals of African descent.
Both the government of Barbados and the European Commission's PharmaNext program will provide financial support for the two-year study, with the total amount of funding to be announced later this summer.
Investigators for the BioMed X Barbados project seek to recruit up to 1,000 Barbadians (also called Bajans) with cardiometabolic disorders. Patient samples will be molecularly profiled via DNA sequencing, proteomic analysis, and flow cytometry. Patient data will then be integrated with publicly available clinical and molecular data from age- and gender-matched Caucasian subjects and from these, BioMed X plans to develop artificial intelligence-based models to optimize available cardiometabolic treatments for Barbados' Black population.
In addition to government funding, BioMed X Barbados expects to attract additional funding from global pharmaceutical companies, development banks, and foundations.
"This partnership with the government of Barbados represents a significant step towards addressing historical inequities in biomedical research and development of new therapies," Christian Tidona, managing director of the Heidelberg, Germany-based BioMed X Institute, said in a statement. "Leveraging state-of-the-art molecular techniques and AI enables us to make an impact on the lives of millions of people of African descent, ensuring that they receive the best possible treatments."