Overview
This sequencing project will help us better understand the genetic factors impacting children and youth with brain development conditions, such as neurodevelopmental conditions and acquired brain injury.
Conditions impacting brain development in children and youth, such as neurodevelopmental conditions (NDDs) and acquired brain injury (ABI) are prevalent, impairing and costly. NDDs and related mental conditions impact at least one in five individuals, persist across the lifespan and cost up to two million dollars in lifetime cost per individual in Canada. ABI further impacts brain development, affecting 4.4 per cent of children 1-17 years, (with up to a third of such injuries leading to persistent post-concussive symptoms. Despite recent advances in our understanding of the biology of these conditions, our ability to change long term outcomes remains limited. Accumulating data from sequencing studies highlights significant biological heterogeneity in NDDs, and emerging studies in ABI also suggest significant genomic heterogeneity. There is an urgent need to understand such heterogeneity, provide tailored anticipatory guidance, discover biomarkers that will allow patient stratification and ultimately develop precision health interventions. In this effort, we have brought together nine research cohorts across NDDs, mental health and ABI, collecting rich phenotyping data, and assembled a highly accomplished multidisciplinary team of genomic scientists, clinicians, engineers and other stakeholders, to whole genome sequence 10,000 samples, using both short and long read sequencing, link genomic data to environmental exposures and phenotypes, and use advanced computational approaches to facilitate precision health solutions.