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Illumina Partners with G3 on Study to ID Cardiovascular Disease Biomarkers, Drug Targets

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Illumina said today that it will partner with Global Genomics Group (G3) to provide whole-genome sequencing for the Genetic Loci and the Burden of Atherosclerotic Lesions, or GLOBAL, clinical trial.

The study aims to identify novel biomarkers and pathways involved in cardiovascular disease to aid in diagnosis, drug development, and a better understanding of the disease.

GLOBAL is an international, prospective pan-omic study that is combining genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, lipoprotein proteomics, and glycomics with the imaging technology coronary computed tomographic angiography.

The clinical trial is recruiting up to 7,000 volunteers. So far over 2,200 samples have been collected, with complete enrollment expected by summer 2014.

"This is the first study of its kind, analyzing trillions of data points from 7,000 patients, designed to investigate the biological basis behind the complex processes responsible for atherosclerosis," G3 Co-founder and CEO Szilard Voros said in a statement. "We are applying the most advanced coronary CT angiography techniques to precisely phenotype atherosclerotic disease, while conducting a complete pan-omic analysis in every patient."

Matt Posard, senior vice president and general manager of Illumina's Translational and Consumer Genomics business unit, said in the statement that the GLOBAL study "will be one of the largest patient studies involving genomic sequencing and will be the largest pan-omic WGS study Illumina has participated in to-date."

G3 is funding the GLOBAL study and has also partnered with Health Diagnostic Laboratory to conduct the multi-center trial.

"The study will represent validation of this technology and opens the door to similar analyses of other diseases such as oncologic, neurodegenerative, and psychiatric with the goal of identifying novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of these serious and debilitating diseases," Health Diagnostic Laboratory CEO, President, and Co-founder Tony Mallory added in the statement.