{"id":5222,"date":"2023-09-26T15:15:04","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T22:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/usc-launches-liver-disease-study-as-part-of-50-3-million-multi-omics-consortium\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:48:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:48:02","slug":"usc-launches-liver-disease-study-as-part-of-50-3-million-multi-omics-consortium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/usc-launches-liver-disease-study-as-part-of-50-3-million-multi-omics-consortium\/","title":{"rendered":"USC launches liver disease study as part of $50.3 million \u201cmulti-omics\u201d consortium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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USC launches liver disease study as part of $50.3 million \u201cmulti-omics\u201d consortium<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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The six-site consortium, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will study individuals from ancestrally diverse populations that are traditionally underrepresented in medical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n

\n Zara Abrams\u00a0<\/span>\n \n September 26, 2023<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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The Keck School of Medicine of USC has received funding<\/a> from the National Institutes of Health as part of a five-year, $50.3 million \u201cmulti-omics\u201d study of human health and disease involving six sites. Researchers in the Multi-Omics for Health and Disease consortium will study fatty liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, asthma, chronic kidney disease, preeclampsia and other conditions, with a focus on underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.<\/p>\n

Throughout the study, researchers will use cutting-edge methods to collect a variety of biological data\u2014including genomics, epigenomics, and transcriptomics\u2014as well as information on patients\u2019 social and environmental circumstances. By combining these datasets over the study period, the consortium aims to answer key questions about the cause of various diseases, as well as develop new tools for diagnosis and treatment. The Keck School of Medicine group will focus primarily on Hispanic patients, ages nine to 18, with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a silent epidemic,\u201d said Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD<\/a>, a professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and one of the consortium\u2019s principal investigators. \u201cNAFLD usually causes no symptoms. Once children go to the doctor, they may already have damage to the liver.\u201d<\/p>\n

For that reason, it\u2019s critical to learn more about the condition\u2019s basis, as well as ways to prevent it, said Max Aung, PhD<\/a>, an assistant professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and a principal investigator for the consortium. Already the most common liver disease, NAFLD is on the rise among both Hispanic Americans and in children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re conducting the first and largest longitudinal study of pediatric NAFLD and at the same time, we\u2019re studying a population that has been historically neglected in biomedical research,\u201d Aung said.<\/p>\n

The power of multi-omics<\/strong><\/p>\n

To date, most longitudinal studies of human disease have tracked a single type of \u201comics\u201d data, such as genomics (DNA), transcriptomics (RNA), epigenomics (chemical modifications that affect DNA function), proteomics (proteins that can affect cell function) or metabolomics (other molecules involved in cellular metabolism). But that approach can miss key relationships between various \u201comics\u201d data, such as how changes in DNA relate to levels of various cellular proteins.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy having all of this information available in the same dataset, we can learn more about biological mechanisms, and improve our ability to find biomarkers to use in the clinic,\u201d Aung said.<\/p>\n

NAFLD is typically diagnosed through a combination of enzyme testing and imaging, which can be expensive and may delay detection of the condition in some populations. Finding a reliable marker of the disease that can be detected in blood samples could help patients get treatment sooner, Chatzi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have biomarkers that can be validated, that will be really useful for clinicians, both for early diagnosis and for evaluating the severity of the disease as it progresses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Social and environmental factors<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to studying the biological basis of various diseases, researchers in the consortium will collect data on social and environmental factors that may help explain why some populations face a heightened risk. For example, the Keck School of Medicine team is collaborating with Sonoma Technology to estimate air pollution exposure across time and space for each patient they recruit.<\/p>\n

Aung and Chatzi are also collaborating with the Southern California Center for Latino Health<\/a> on a community engagement strategy that will involve recruitment of a community advisory board and development of a communication strategy for disseminating research findings to participants, as well as their families and communities.<\/p>\n

The research team will begin recruitment in the fall\u00a0at\u00a0Children\u2019s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) in collaboration with\u00a0Tania Mitsinikos<\/a>,\u00a0MD,\u00a0Alaina Vidmar<\/a>, MD, and Rohit Kohli<\/a>, MBBS, following a consortium-wide meeting to develop the scientific agenda for the next five years.\u00a0The CHLA team has a long history of successful clinical studies in youth with obesity and fatty liver disease.\u00a0In addition to specific disease insights, the team aims to develop research methods and analytic techniques that can be used in future longitudinal studies of multi-omics data.\u00a0Tanya Alderete, PhD,<\/a>\u00a0from University of Colorado Boulder, is also collaborating on the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cMulti-omics is the frontier of biomedical and environmental health research, and our team at USC is committed to advancing the best available science and methods to pursue this,\u201d Aung said.<\/p>\n

About this research<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to USC, the consortium\u2019s other study sites are the University of California, San Diego; the University of California, San Francisco; Columbia University; the University of Illinois Chicago; and the University of Texas Health Science Center.<\/p>\n

This work is jointly supported by National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":5223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[81,169,20],"class_list":["post-5222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-department-of-population-and-public-health-sciences","tag-latest","tag-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUSC launches liver disease study as part of $50.3 million \u201cmulti-omics\u201d consortium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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