Employing the latest biotechnology to reclassify major chronic diseases, Duke University researchers have helped launch a study that they hope will revolutionize the field of medicine.
Backed by an initial donation to Duke from real estate developer David Murdock, the decades-long project-called the MURDOCK study-seeks 50,000 volunteers from Cabarrus and Kannapolis County to donate blood for disease research. The first day of enrollment was Feb. 16.
Dr. Geoffrey Ginsburg, a principal investigator for the study and director of Duke's Center for Genomic Medicine, said the study will allow a shift from the traditional anatomical and histological descriptions of disease to ones that are more personalized.
"Large disease classifications look homogeneous on the outside but are molecularly different," he said. "Now we have the future of genomic personalized medicine unraveling in front of us in science."
For many backers of the project, the MURDOCK study echoes the historic Framingham Heart study in Massachusetts, which embarked on an ambitious research project in 1948 to identify the common contributors of cardiovascular disease in generations of participants.
"We envisioned the MURDOCK project as being the genomic equivalent of the Framingham study, in which we would engage the community and enroll them in a long-term study to see if they do or do not develop chronic diseases," Ginsburg said. "Framingham was the genesis of the MURDOCK study."
Following a series of discussions with Murdock, legislative and community leaders as well as local residents, research universities in Research Triangle Park devised the idea for the study, Ginsburg said.
The project is a collaboration among Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, and will be conducted in a 311,000 square foot laboratory at the North Carolina Research Center.
"One of the things we thought about was how we can really engage the people of the community. Particularly, how can we engage the population and not have [the NCRC] be an island in the community?" Ginsburg said.
The partnership among the three institutions in the Triangle combines unique sets of strengths to produce "something unsurpassed in clinical translational research," he added.
"N.C. State brings to bear its agricultural genomics, while UNC has a long standing history in public health and population epidemiology," Ginsburg said. As for Duke, "the ability to integrate genomics, clinical data and study design through translational medicine is a key strength."
A key component of both studies is the community outreach, he said.
Ashley Dunham, the community health project leader for the study, said the 50,000-person registry drawn by the study necessitates the engagement of the local residents.
Furthermore, community cooperation allows the project to connect with populations that are susceptible to specific diseases, she said.
"We have learned to use community engagement as a tool to reach vulnerable populations that are sometimes hard to target," she said.
Throughout the past year, individuals involved in the study have promoted it through "basically every avenue of communication," in order to allow the community to "digest the concept of the project," Dunham said.
"We've been in churches, senior living homes and Hispanic learning centers, and we've reached out through television, radio, brochures and sponsorship of events," she said.
As a result, excitement among community residents is high, said Melissa Cornish, project leader for Business Development/Analysis for the MURDOCK study.
"There is widespread enthusiasm from local residents that has been building for many months now," she said.
In addition to its impact on medicine, Ginsburg said the project has another important effect: The capacity to raise public interest in genome science and demystify the field.
"People are fearful of having their DNA tested," he said. "And the project presents a real opportunity to educate the community."
Dr. Bruce Sullenger, who is the director of the Duke Translational Research Institute which is working with NCRC to head the project, said the MURDOCK study fits in with the DTRI's overall mission to "improve patient care by rapidly inventing and effectively developing new drugs, diagnostics and devices for treatment of human disease."
"The MURDOCK study will facilitate our efforts to redefine disease based upon molecular signatures," he said. "We believe that such an understanding will allow researchers at Duke and other places to make more informed decisions about how to develop improved therapies."
Uncovering the complicated signatures that define human disease is more important than ever due to the complexity of human health and biology, he said. But Sullenger said he has high hopes for the study.
"We anticipate that the MURDOCK study will yield many breakthroughs in how we understand human health and disease."
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