Mayo Clinic Biobank

Years ago I decided that I would be part of the Mayo Clinic Bio bank. They are hoping to expand the bio bank by 30,000 participants.

Did you know that there are more women than men are in the biobank?

Did you know that the largest age groups are between 41-80 years of age?

What is some of the current research?

There is a Plasma Renalase in heart failure. Actually theee is an enzyme thought to play a role in heart failure. Today we were at a business. The owner told us that his 53 year old wife died of heart failure last year, and she had no symptoms. She was a wonderful lady, just like their loving dog. Life can change for any of  us at any given moment.

They are doing some research on patients treated with antidepressents for major depressive disorder.  They want more people with no family history of mental health disorders to be in the study. The research will  try to get to the bottom of why some folks respond better to medications than others.

There is a reserach study being done on a new genetic variatioin that was recently reported to increase the risk of hereditary prosate cancer.  How common is this genetic varation?

Then there is another study about the genetic association in endometrial cancer. They are researching patiens with endrometrial cancer and the genetic variations. I know endometrial cancer runs in my family.  Do certain genetic variations increase ones risk for endometrial cancer?

There is another study on Whole Exome Sequencing to compare genetic differences between health and disease.  Did you know that we all have variations in our genes. There are so many, many variations. Some cause disease and the risk for disease. That is why they do DNA sequencing which allows them to read through all the 6 billion letters to see how the gene is spelled.  For years we heard about sequencing. They are now looking at the Whole Exome Sequencing or WES which may be the most important part in determining your risk for disease.  There are actually thousands of variations. 

The Mayo Clinic Bio bank is learning more about people’s genetic blueprint which means patients health and risk for disease. This will help them to individualize medicine.

Individualized Medicine, what is it?

Mayo Clinic, Bio Bank:

There is the family caregiver burden study that effects the immune system, quality of life and risk for disease. Do the family caregivers in home hospice experience more stress induced immune issues?