BioMed Central has announced that 17 research articles carried out using genetic data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), are being published as a supplement to BMC Medical Genetics.
The collected research, FHS 100K, is the result of cooperation among several research institutions including Boston University School of Medicine and Public Health; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI); the National Library of Medicine; and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
FHS 100K will be given unprecedented availability via BioMed Central's open access journal and through NCBI's Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?id=phs000007. The researchers' decision to publish in BioMed Central's open access journal underlines their collective belief that genetic observations from FHS should be made publicly available and remain an unpatented data resource designed to accelerate scientific discovery.
"BMC Medical Genetics is honored to be the journal which presents these exciting new results to the world," said Melissa Norton, Editor-in-Chief of BMC Medical Genetics. "Inclusion in both our open access journal and in dbGaP will ensure the widest possible access to these materials and will allow researchers to more easily identify high priority findings for replication to build upon the new findings."
The FHS 100K takes its title from the high resolution 100K Affymetrix GeneChip, designed to contain the genetic sequence array of up 100,000 DNA sequences known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). FHS collaborators studied genetic traits, known as phenotypes, and established 8 larger Phenotype Working Groups, overseeing 17 different trait areas including cardiovascular risk factors and biomarkers; subclinical and clinical cardiovascular disease; cancer and longevity; and pulmonary, sleep, neurology, renal and bone domains. Each research article published in the supplement corresponds with one of these areas.
No other study in history has analyzed as many different phenotypic domains as FHS 100K. In addition, many phenotype samples collected through FHS were gathered years before modern therapy and remain undistorted by the effects of contemporary medical treatments, offering pristine samples unattainable in contemporary subjects.
"The Framingham Heart Study 100K effort was made possible by the generosity of our participants who have received examinations and surveillance for almost 60 years," said Dr. Emelia Benjamin, Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and Director of the Echocardiography and Vascular Function laboratories at the Framingham Heart Study