Proposal summaries
B26 - Early onset eating psychopathy - collision between satiety and constraint - 01/08/2001
(No outline received).
B25 - The SPINK gene and eczema - 01/08/2001
(No outline received).
B24 - A gene-environment study of infection susceptibility in pre-term delivery - 01/08/2001
B22 - Cadmium exposure and renal damage in adults and children living near zinc smelter in Avonmouth - 01/08/2001
(No outline received).
B20 - Long-term effects of early postnatal stress - 01/08/2001
Specific aims of this research are to a) examine the long-term effects of prenatal anxiety on dimensional and diagnostic measures of psychopathology in early adolescence; b) assess the role of the HPA axis underlying the links between prenatal anxiety on adolescent psychopathology and stress vulnerability; c) test competing hypotheses concerning the processes by which prenatal anxiety has direct, mediated or moderated effects on adolescent psychopathology; and d) test the hypothesis that the effects of prenatal anxiety/stress on behavioral/emotional problems in early adolescence are moderated by genetic risk.
B18 - Determinants consequences of total energy expenditure and energy expended on physical activity in a representative contemporary sample of 10/11 year olds - 01/08/2001
(No outline received).
B11 - The ALSPAC cell lines - 01/07/2001
The overall aim of this grant was to create a Lymphoblastoid Cell Line (LCL) collection from children and parents participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The study has collected data on a scale and with a richness unprecedented in the field of epidemiological study and the generation of the cell line bank would provide material for further genetic, gene expression and metabolomic research.
Development of the resource initially involved establishing a cell culture facility with robotic cell maintenance systems, development of a bespoke Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) and development of protocols for the transformation and growth of LCLs. Once these systems were in place LCL production would become a routine laboratory procedure enabling cell lines to be produced from all cohort members who consented to cell line production.
B10 - Blood pressure central obesity and insulin sensitivity in early childhood - associated with adrenal function birthweight and early growth - 01/07/2001
At UCLH we run a nationally used service for investigation of adrenal disease based on urine steroid analysis. We frequently get referred samples from children with early pubertal development which we attribute to adrenarche. From epidemiological studies we have conducted in collaboration with Professor Baker in Southampton we have examined changes in adrenal function in 9 year old children in Salisbury. In 24 hour urine collections both adrenal androgen and cortisol metabolites were quantified. Urinary androgen excretion was higher in children who had been light at birth. A 1 kg decrease in birthweight was associated with a 40% increase in androgen excretion. In contrast the relationship with urinary cortisol excretion was U-shaped with higher outputs at the extremes of birthweight. Birthweight was associated with metabolite output independent of current weight, gender and gestational age at birth, indicating that the HPA function was related to fetal growth rather than prematurity. A reduced birth size has also been associated with cardiovascular disease risk and insulin-dependent diabetes. High blood pressure and cardiac hypertrophy may be the consequence of the hyperactive adrenal secreting both cortisol and adrenal androgens from early puberty.
In children with asthma at 8 years of age there is absence of adrenal androgen output. This leads to a reduction in growth rate such that asthmatic children at this stage are shorter than their peers. As they go into puberty they catch-up on the lost height. Loss of adrenal androgens is a feature of many sytemic illnesses (severe burns, HIV and AIDS) and may be linked with states of immune suppression. Children with diabetes would be another group worth investigating.
In keeping with the objectives of the ALSPAC study these children would be worth studying in the same way with the aim of clarifying:
* Adrenal function in relation to birth weight
* Adrenal function in relation to parental adrenal function
* Adrenal function in asthmatic children
In addition to examining the balance of adrenal androgens and cortisol the urine data can be examined to establish whether changes would be due to increased circulating levels or due to changes in the degradative process for cortisol through it's metabolism to inactive cortisone. Thus metabolites of cortisol and cortisone will be examined along with the excretion rates of the free hormones themselves.
24 hour urine samples would be desirable from the children and their parents in order to assess cortisol and adrenal androgen productions.
B279 - ALSPAC data of particular relevance to economists previously A24 - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B17 - Alcohol use during pregnancy child development at 7 years and the influence of genotype on association - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B16 - Antibiotic resistance - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B15 - The genetic environmental aetiology of anxiety in mothers - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B14 - A comparison of parental questionnaires and a system of professional child health surveillance in identifying developmental impairments - 01/07/2001
This project will investigate how well parents and health professionals can identify developmental problems in preschool children, using the ALSPAC study, a total birth cohort of 14,138 children born in 1991-2.
We will test whether parents are the first to identify impairments in their children and whether questionnaires can be an effective method of selecting children for further professional assessment in the pre-school period.
B12 - Vegetarian diet and health - 01/07/2001
(No outline received).
B7 - Hearing - 01/06/2001
(No proposal form received).
B6 - Proximity to overhead power lines and depression - 01/06/2001
(No proposal form received).
B5 - Thiomersal in DTP immunisations and long term development of this child - 01/06/2001
N/A
B3 - An investigation into environmental influences on skeletal mineralisation during childhood - 01/06/2001
This project aimed to examine whether skeletal development in childhood is programmed by early life factors, by studying the relationship between maternal diet as assessed by food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), other determinants of maternal nutrition such as smoking and exercise, and bone mass acquisition in childhood. The latter was assessed by measuring total body bone mineral content (BMC), bone area and bone mineral density (BMD) by performing total body DXA scans in 7000 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort at age nine. Regional development at sites such as the spine, upper and lower limbs was also evaluated. In further studies, we aimed to explore the mechanisms involved in any such programming effect by examining the role of genetic factors by studying associations between DXA parameters and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in different genes.
B106 - Mannose binding lectin genotype and preterm labour and delivery - 01/06/2001
(No outline received).
B285 - A national DNA control series for genetic case-control studies based on the British 1958 cohort NOT ALSPAC - 01/01/2001
The MRC / Wellcome Trust Expert Working Group on UK Population Biomedical Collections, in their final report dated March 2000 (section 1.9), suggested that there was a need for intensive genotyping of a "panel of controls ... representing various sectors of the UK population ... for comparison of SNP allele and genotype frequencies with case series." This application describes an expeditious and cost-effective approach to the creation of such a DNA control panel, by producing immortalised cell lines and banked DNA from specimens to be collected over the next two years from members of the British 1958 birth cohort. This fieldwork is already funded by the MRC and all biological material thus derived will be managed according to the MRC guidelines for use of human tissue and biological samples in research (1999), except that our MREC-approved consent forms extend only to non-commercial medical research studies of the causes, diagnosis, treatment or outcome of disease. This nationwide sample of adults followed from birth potentially offers much richer phenotypic information than a control group newly recruited in middle age. In particular, there is prospectively collected data on traits and diseases during childhood and adolescence which would be missed by creation of a de novo panel.