Poster Presentation GENEMAPPERS 2024

Exploring health and disease trajectories from pregnancy through early childhood with the origins project. A collaborative research platform with centralised biobank-scale ‘omic analyses in the pipeline. (#93)

Courtney Kidd 1 , Nina D'Vaz 1 2 , Jacqueline A Davis 1 2 3 , Desiree T Silva 1 2 3 4 5 , Susan L Prescott 1 2 5 6 7
  1. Telethon Kids Institute, Nedlands, WA, Australia
  2. School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia
  3. School of Population Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia
  4. Department of Paediatrics and Neonatology, Joondalup Health Campus, Perth, WA, Australia
  5. Medical School, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
  6. Scholars Program, Nova Institute for Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
  7. Department of Immunology, Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia

Background:

The developmental origins of conditions such as allergy, behavioural, mental health, metabolic or weight disorders may manifest in early childhood, posing profound public health challenges with lifelong implications. The ORIGINS Project is a prospective birth cohort in Western Australia with collaborative ties to local and global birth and disease-specific cohorts (1,2). It serves as a powerful research-enabling platform, allowing researchers to disentangle complex interplay between individual biology and early-life exposures.  

Methods

Comprising 9,500+ children born between 2017-2024 and their families, ORIGINS has a core group of 4,000 families undergoing comprehensive, multi-timepoint data and biospecimen collections spanning the antenatal period, birth, through age 5.  The meticulously curated ORIGINS biobank houses a collection of 400,000+ biospecimens, and continuity of collections during pandemic periods. Samples available to researchers include serum, plasma, whole blood, cord blood and cord gases, newborn dried blood spots, RNA PAXgene, cryopreserved cells, placenta, meconium, stool, colostrum, breast milk, urine, saliva, buccal cells, hair, house dust and soon teeth samples from mothers, children, and some non-birthing partners.

Results

ORIGINS has attracted 45 integrated research projects, including clinical trials. Areas of investigation have explored pivotal roles of microbiome, metabolome, inflammation, immune development, and epigenetics with adult and child health trajectories. Derived data is returned to the project and made available for further research use, enhancing the platform’s collaborative potential. In 2024, ORIGINS embarks on a large-scale multi-‘omic data generation initiative to convert the invaluable biospecimen repository into microbiome, inflammation and metabolomic datasets, amplifying research potential and paving the way for groundbreaking discoveries.

Conclusion

The ORIGINS project drives pioneering advances in understanding early-onset disease and long-term child health trajectories. The project extends an open invitation to research and industry partners, fostering collaborative opportunities to unravel the complex aetiology of childhood diseases and inform innovative strategies for improving health trajectories across generations.

  1. D’Vaz N, Kidd C, Miller S, Amin M, Davis JA, Talati Z, Silva DT, Prescott SL. The ORIGINS Project Biobank: A Collaborative Bio Resource for Investigating the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2023; 20(13):6297. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20136297
  2. Silva, D., Hagemann, E., Davis, J., Gibson, L., Srinivasjois, R., Palmer, D., Colvin, L., Tan, J. & Prescott, S. (2020). Introducing the ORIGINS project: a community-based interventional birth cohort. Reviews on Environmental Health, 35(3), 281-293. https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2020-0057