Through CIBER, ISCIII promotes a cohort of 200,000 people to study and improve the health of the population

Josep Basora, director of the IDIAPJGol, represented the Institute at the meeting of the project, which is a basis for implementing, developing and consolidating precision medicine in Spain.

A large team of researchers and representatives of the health services of all the autonomous communities met this week in Alcalá de Henares to share the progress of the IMPaCT Cohorte project, one of the three programs of the Precision Medicine Infrastructure associated with Science and Technology (IMPaCT).

The IMPaCT infrastructure, promoted and financed by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), provides a basis for the implementation of Precision Medicine in the National Health System through a strategy based on science and innovation, and consists of three programs: Predictive Medicine, Genomic Medicine and Data Science. The IMPaCT Cohort project is coordinated by the Epidemiology and Public Health area (CIBERESP) of the Network Biomedical Research Center Consortium (CIBER), dependent on the ISCIII.

The meeting was chaired by the mayor of Alcalá de Henares, Javier Rodríguez Palacios, who opened the day with Cristóbal Belda, director of the ISCIII; Pilar Gayoso, deputy general director of Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine of the ISCIII; Marina Pollán, Coordinator of IMPaCT Cohorte and director of the National Epidemiology Center of ISCIII and CIBERESP, and Margarita Blázquez, manager of CIBER.  

IMPaCT's Predictive Medicine program aims to create a large population-based cohort of 200,000 people. "We want to know the role of habits, genetic susceptibility and the specific characteristics of the Spanish population and our environment in the origin of the main diseases and health problems," says Josep Basora, director of the IDIAPJGol.

After the first year of the project, the progress of each of the working groups was shared at the Alcalá conference. Among other topics, the technical aspects of the project related to the design, the dimensions of the basal exploration, the data management model, the collection of samples, the identification of the IMPaCT centers throughout the territory and the laying the pilot study of the project is underway, which will be developed in three of the IMPaCT centers, in Palma de Mallorca, Madrid and Monzón (Osca).

A project from and for everyone 

To prevent the appearance of a disease, it is necessary to know well what causes this disease. Thus, having information on a large number of people and following them over time will make it possible to predict in the future the risks of falling ill individually, thanks also to advances in genomics, the digital field and ICT, which facilitate this personalized approach.

21 Spanish institutions collaborate in the IMPaCT Cohort, including primary care centres, hospitals and research centres, and the National Statistics Institute (INE). The study plans to have 50 health centers (IMPaCT centers) spread throughout Spain, from which randomly selected participants, aged between 16 and 79, will be contacted and monitored. "Citizens' collaboration is essential and we trust that the Spanish population will understand the relevance of the project and participate if they call it their health centre", point out the project coordinators.

Central role of the Regional Health Services

There are successful examples in other countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany or the USA. These cohorts have biological samples, with very extensive epidemiological information - including social and economic factors - and constitute the basic tool for progress in personalized prevention. Thus, IMPaCT Cohorte will allow a qualitative leap in research on precision preventive medicine in Spain, placing our country at the same level.

The creation of this cohort is a shared effort with all the regional health services of the autonomous communities and INGESA (both autonomous cities), together with the INE. In addition to the coordinating team, representatives from the project nodes of Cantabria, Euskadi, Galicia, Murcia, Extremadura, Canary Islands, Navarre, Balearic Islands, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencian Community, Catalonia, Andalusia, La Rioja will participate in the meeting. , Castile and León, Asturias, Ceuta, Melilla and Madrid.

Data of great value to the scientific community

The project will collect information from participants through questionnaires, physical examinations, physiological tests and biomarker analysis of biological samples, which will be carried out at each health centre. The data will be available to develop other scientific projects of interest to society. "IMPaCT Cohorte will allow the scientific community to better understand how to prevent the main diseases and deterioration associated with age, injuries and disability", explains Fernando Rodríguez Artalejo, CIBERESP researcher and Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University Autonomous of Madrid, which also belongs to the project coordination team.

The possibility of having a dynamic record of individual and population data, clinical, genetic, epidemiological and lifestyle data, will make it possible to build predictive models of disease, identify health inequalities, monitor key indicators and evaluate the impact of health policies.