GENIUS-CHD aims to be an open, global and inclusive consortium with transparent operating and governance procedures.
Membership is non binding and does not commit members to participate in any studies they do not wish to join. There is also no requirement to share any samples. All analyses are conducted under a federated approach so data never leaves the study location and only summary outputs are shared.
Advantages are through membership of an international community that shares one goal to better understand risk of subsequent events or residual risk; access to expertise from across the world; peer review; opportunities to participate in relevant projects; enrichment of cohorts where projects permit new genotyping or biomarker assessment; and support for leveraging grant funding locally and internationally.
PIs with cohorts or studies are invited to join if they are eligible according to the following 3 criteria
(1) Collection of subjects with established coronary heart disease. This can be stable CHD (patients with revascularization, stable symptoms with confirmed CAD) or acute CHD (including but not limited to ACS at enrollment or prior MI) or a mixture (such as angiographic collections).
Studies can be either investigator led clinical cohorts, nested case-cohorts or large RCTs.
(2) Stored biological samples. As the consortium seeks to identify biomarkers and genetic variants of risk, studies must have collected blood or tissue samples at enrollment. These samples need not have been already processed, but should be available for any future biomarker or genetic analysis.
A key aim of GENIUS-CHD is to leverage funding so that cohorts with stored samples can be funded to start genotyping or biomarker analysis.
(3) Prospective follow up. All study participants should be followed for subsequent events. The types of outcomes will vary by study, but as a minimum we expect cohorts to collect all cause mortality and or MI.
Many studies may not have long enough follow up yet, but these are still eligible to join as follow up will mature with time.
If you have a cohort that meets these criteria, and would like to join or learn more please get in touch through the contact us page.