Joint Wellcome Trust / MRC Press Release
Researchers from all over the country are converging at the Royal Society in London on June 4 to discuss their findings from the world’s biggest study of how genes and the environment interact.
The event will commemorate the first 10 years of ALSPAC (the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, also known as Children of the 90s), which began with the enrolment of 14,000 mothers-to-be back in 1991.
ALSPAC’s aim is to find the pathways – both genetic and environmental – that lead over time to common disorders, including asthma, food and other allergies, autism, hyperactivity, dyslexia, anxieties and phobias, obesity, depression, deafness, eczema, vision, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy. With this knowledge, preventative drug treatments, as well as diet and lifestyle changes, can be implemented to divert the pathways towards health, rather than disease.
The event on Monday will also celebrate an £11 million grant that will ensure the project--which has already saved thousands of lives throughout the world--will continue over the next 5 years. The Wellcome Trust and the MRC are injecting core funding of more than £6 million, and Bristol University £5 million.
The Trust is providing a additional £2 million to establish a collection of cells from children and their parents, which will allow DNA samples to be used as a long-term resource for future studies. (The MRC has previously provided £1 million to obtain DNA samples from parents and children.)
Professor Jean Golding from The University of Bristol, who heads ALSPAC, and many of the researchers involved in the study will be presenting results from the study at the meeting on Monday.
Notes to Editors:
1. A diverse range of funding agencies have provided support for the overall programme and specific research projects including the Wellcome Trust, the MRC and the University of Bristol, the UK Department of Health, the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions, the Department of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries and the National Institutes of Health in the US.
2. The Trust is contributing 3.4 million for the core ALSPAC grant and £2 million for the cell lines, making its total grant £5.4 million.
3. The Wellcome Trust is an independent research-funding charity, established under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936. It is funded from a private endowment which is managed with long-term stability and growth in mind. The Trust’s mission is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. Web address: www.wellcome.ac.uk
Facts and Figures:
- 14,000 mothers-to-be enrolled in ALSPAC in 1991; 12,000 families are currently involved in the study
- Over 100 publications have resulted from the ALSPAC study over the last 10 years
- The children involved in the study currently attend more than 1500 schools, not only around Bristol, but throughout the UK, and in 31 countries throughout the world
- The information received every day corresponds to 60 Gigabytes (the equivalent of more than 4000 floppy discs)
- Over the past 10 years, the number of staff at the ALSPAC study centre in Bristol has increased from 30 to around 150
- The ALSPAC post room sends out six sacks of mail per day, and 1200 questionnaires and 650 reminder letters per week.
- Over the last 10 years ALSPAC has sent out 650,000 questionnaires
- Since the start of the study, children have contributed 12,000 milk teeth, which are used to study illness and pollutants