Lye- cohort studies

So the Ontario Birth Study is a study in which we’re seeking to follow mothers and their babies through pregnancy until birth. It is a study in which we have, after the woman consents to be part of the study, access to her clinical information of the pregnancy. It has access to biospecimens, blood samples, vaginal swabs, samples of urine and such like; but they’re taken at times when those samples would normally have been taken for clinical reasons, they’re not additional samples. And then we have, questionnaires that the mothers complete about her past medical history, about her socioeconomic circumstances, education, exercise, nutrition, psychosocial aspects. And so we hope to get a very, very detailed set of data about that entire pregnancy. And with the biospecimens, we’ll be able to look at the genetic makeup of the mother and the baby. We’ll be able to look at the microbiome. We’ll be able to look at the interactions between the mother’s environment and that genetic makeup. And so we believe we’ll get a tremendous amount of information about the importance of these gene-environment interactions during pregnancy.  

In addition, the babies are being followed after birth. They go into a cohort called “Target Kids”, which follows them in the primary health care system, whether that’s GP practices or pediatric practices. And again, we’re following those children during their early life up and through school. Again trying to get an idea of what are the environments that are around those children? And how do those environments interact with their genetic makeup to set them on trajectories of hopefully optimal health, learning and social functioning? 

So we think over time, this cohort will become one of the largest in the world. The anticipation is that as people do research studies on the cohort, their data will be put into the data warehouse of the cohort so the analytic data, and the information within the cohort will become richer and richer. It will become available to investigators around the world. So, you know, the present model of research is that, I get a grant to do a study. I do the study; it might be the genetics of preterm birth. I’ll genotype the mothers, the babies, I’ll look at outcomes. I’ll publish that data, but then that data stays in my lab. In this new model, that data will go into the cohort and be available for other people to come along and ask other questions such as:  ‘How does the genetics of the mother influence her development of her microbiome or the baby’s microbiome?’ So it’s a new model that really is a collaborative model rather than individual model.