Laboratory of Yohan Bossé
"Building research capacity to study heart and lung diseases."
A first common dominator of research activities conducted by Dr. Bossé is the access to large volume and high quality of biological materials (DNA, lung and heart tissues) from patients that are well-characterized for heart and lung diseases. Dr. Bossé and his team are thus working with colleagues respirologists, cardiologists, pathologists, thoracic and cardiac surgeons to organize large and diverse biological sample collections necessary for genomic health research. Through biobank and database activities, they are building research capacity to study heart and lung diseases. These resources are combined with state-of-the-art genomic approaches as well as innovative projects oriented toward medical needs.
The lung Biobank
PI: Michel Laviolette, Philippe Joubert, Yohan Bossé and François Maltais
A world-class biobank infrastructure is optimally synchronized with the lung surgery department at the IUCPQ to collect a large number of human lung tissues required to conduct modern genomic research. More than 4,000 lung specimens are currently available with corresponding clinical data collected in a local database with retrieval and querying capabilities. Clinical data includes pathology reports, demographic data, smoking status, comorbidities and lung functions. Post-surgery outcome data are also available for the majority of patients. Plasma, serum, buffy coat, tumor and matched non-tumor lung tissue in OCT, FFPE, and snap frozen are available. To the best of our knowledge, our biobank currently possesses the largest and best quality collection of lung tumors and adjacent non-tumor tissues in the world. During the last few years, we have collected lung tissues at a rate of 300-350 new samples annually. Archival samples with corresponding clinical data are serving many ongoing research projects.
PI: Yohan Bossé and Louis-Philippe Boulet
This cohort is part of an ongoing project initiated in 2008 to elucidate the genetics of asthma. The goal is to collect 1,000 cases and 1,000 controls, which will be one of the largest case-control cohort in the world from a single institution to study the genetics of asthma. These subjects are all unrelated French Canadian white adults 18 years of age or older. Each participant undergoes comprehensive testing for asthma and allergy including spirometry, methacholine challenge, allergy skin-prick test and total serum IgE measurement. DNA is collected for all participants. Induced sputum is also available for a subset of cases and controls. One important objective of this project is to power the local genomic research program on asthma, but also to serve a wide range of purposes; from a replication cohort for other’s hypothesis-driven research to participation in national and international large-scale genome-wide efforts intended to improve the molecular understanding of asthma.
The first manuscript using this cohort was recently published and includes the clinical data of 566 asthma cases and 416 controls.
The Aortic Valve Biobank
PI: Patrick Mathieu, Yohan Bossé, and Philippe Pibarot
We have created a biobank that is optimally synchronized with the cardiac surgery department to collect a large number of human valve tissues required to conduct modern clinical and genetic research. Aortic valves are collected from patients undergoing aortic valve replacement. Aortic valves from more than 1,600 patients are currently available for research purpose. Corresponding clinical data are stored in an electronic database that includes demographic variables, medical history, Doppler-echocardiographic examination, smoking history, and medication usage. Comorbidities are also available including hypertension, coronary artery diseases, renal failure, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia. The patients are also characterized for many metabolic variables including lipid and glucose levels, and inflammatory mediators. The valve specimen collection is ongoing and new patients are recruited at a rate of 150 annually. Serum and buffy coats are also available. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest collection of human aortic valves in the world.
The Case-Control Calcific Aortic Valve Stenosis Cohort
PI: Yohan Bossé, Patrick Mathieu, and Philippe Pibarot
This is an ongoing collection of patients with and without calcific aortic valve stenosis (AVS). At this point, the cohort consists of more than 1,000 French Canadian patients with severe tricuspid AVS and the same number of controls matched for age and gender. With this DNA collection, modern genomic approaches are utilized to identify susceptibility genes and new molecular targets to treat this disease.
The Bicuspid Aortic Valve Cohort
PI: Yohan Bossé, Patrick Mathieu, and Philippe Pibarot
DNA and clinical data from French Canadian patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) are collected. BAV patients are first identified by Doppler echocardiographic examination and then confirmed at surgery. As of today, 314 patients with BAV have been collected. This cohort is also part of the International Bicuspid Aortic Valve Consortium (BAVCon, http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01980797).
