NIH Radio

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Brief Description:

In 2007, the NHLBI initiated SHARe, (SNP Health Association Resource), a Web-based dataset which provides qualified researchers with free access to a wealth of data from multiple large population-based studies, starting with the Framingham Heart Study.

Transcript:

Balintfy: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has expanded its collection of genetic and clinical data to include information collected from three asthma research networks.

Kiley: And those are the Childhood Asthma Management Program, the Childhood Asthma Research and Education Network, and the Asthma Clinical Research Network.

Balintfy: Dr. James Kiley, Director of the Division of Lung Diseases at NHLBI says this new expansion of the project, is called SHARP.

Kiley: SHARP will allow the broad research communality to relate genetic variations to clinical and laboratory results. And the hope here is that will enable future discoveries of the links between the genes and health for asthma and other airway diseases.

Balintfy: SHARP includes data on 2,332 people with asthma and 805 families whose DNA was tested for 1 million genetic variations. In addition, clinical data gathered during asthma clinical trials, such as lung function, allergy status, and respiratory symptoms are included in the database. Dr. Kiley adds that the project was designed to accelerate knowledge and help researchers pursue an agenda around the goal of personalized healthcare.

Kiley: The ways in which we prevent diagnose and treat health problems could be tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup and we think that asthma represents a very good opportunity to pursue that type of agenda.

Balintfy: For more information about asthma and SHARP, visit www.nhlbi.nih.gov. This is Joe Balintfy, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.