NEW YORK – Researchers at the University of Sydney said Monday that they have won a grant worth A$1.4 million ($1.1 million) from Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council and will work with Allelica to apply polygenic risk scores for coronary artery disease prevention.
The grant money supplements the A$2 million that project leaders have received from industry partners, according to the university.
With the funding, a multidisciplinary team led by Gemma Figtree, chair of the University of Sydney's Cardiovascular Initiative, will develop strategies to prevent heart disease by applying polygenic risk scores in primary care settings.
Figtree and colleagues will test and validate Allelica's polygenic risk score technology in clinical practice, with hopes of integrating the scores into routine clinical practice, a stated goal of New York-based Allelica. Participants in the study will receive their results back through the Allelica platform.
"The first step in reducing the impact of preventable chronic disease is to identify people at high risk," Allelica CEO Giordano Bottà said in a statement. "In the case of coronary artery disease, the root of the problem is the dangerous lack of accuracy in most risk classification models."