The main objective of WP2 is to discover novel internal biomarkers in relation to children’s mental health. The specific focus lies in the discovery of proteomic, metabolomic and DNA-based biomarkers in bodily fluids.
Reliable internal biomarkers related to diagnosis, risk prediction, monitoring disease course and outcome of mental health disorders in children remain an unmet clinical need. Advances in techniques allowing high-throughput biological analyses have introduced new opportunities for better understanding of these disorders, and the discovery of biomarkers.
The effect markers related to children’s mental health generated in WP2 will in subsequent work packages be related to the external exposure environment of children in order to determine which of the observed mental-health related biomarkers are associated with the environmental exposure the individual was exposed to.
18 month update
The objective of WP2 is to identify internal biomarkers - a set of molecules such as proteins or metabolites present in the human body – that are related to children´s mental health.
In the first 18 months of the project, the WP2 team has selected the biological samples available for biomarker discovery. The samples were received from one of Equal-Life’s partners (ISGlobal). Several meetings were held with companies and institutes to find and test the optimal methods for various biomarker analyses to start the phase in which the markers can be detected in the children’s biological samples.
The WP2 team is currently in the process of analyzing the raw data of the biomarker detection analyses. Furthermore, a scientific paper on the analysis of a biomarker for aggression is now published. This paper was initiated prior to the start of Equal-Life. Later in the project the newly discovered biomarkers will be linked to environmental exposures.