Genetics of healthy people

Biomarker is short for biological marker. These are molecules in blood, urine or other body fluids or tissues. We can measure how much is present. The amount of a biomarker can tell us if someone is healthy or sick. Sometimes, it is hard to measure the one we want. So, we use a surrogate, or substitute, marker. One that is related, but easier to measure. Examples include height or white blood cell count. Gene changes found in lots of people can affect biomarkers. They can also affect surrogate biomarkers. These are gene changes we get from our parents. Most of them do not cause any problems. One or more gene changes could make us a little taller. Other gene changes could make someone else shorter. But short people are often at higher risk for heart disease than tall people. So some doctors may use height as a way to measure risk of heart disease. Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center will use BioVU to study surrogate biomarkers. They will look for gene changes linked to surrogate biomarkers. They will also look for a link between the gene change and a disease, or lack of disease. The goal is to make sure the surrogate biomarkers are a good substitute when testing for a disease risk. Take our height example above. There may not be a link between a gene change that makes someone shorter and some types of heart disease. If this is the case, height would not be a good surrogate biomarker for those types of heart disease. We want to know more about how gene changes affect biomarkers and disease. This will help us better diagnose diseases. We can run better tests. We may also do a better job preventing or treating some diseases.