The AMBISiON-IMPaCT project, promoted by the IMPaCT cohort itself, has as its main objective to improve the collection of data on environmental exposures and their ability to detect their health effects early.
The IMPaCT cohort, currently in the deployment phase, aims to recruit 200,000 participants, although so far it has incorporated 5,500. As the AMBISiON-IMPaCT project will last only two years, the analysis of biological samples from participants already recruited would be unsustainable and of limited utility. For this reason, the project will focus its efforts on developing tools that allow for the automated and prospective integration of environmental exposure information into the cohort data system.
This information will be obtained through questionnaires, geospatial sources and air quality models, which will be linked to each participant’s residential data and personal monitors. In this way, personalized measures of exposure to environmental factors will be generated for the entire cohort, taking advantage of the potential of its large size.
In addition, predictive models of disease risk will benefit from tools for the early detection of cardiometabolic and neurological effects. Among them, high-resolution ocular imaging technologies will make it possible to create a bank of fundus images, similar to that of the UK Biobank, with the aim of using it as a biomarker of early effect. As an added value, AMBISiON-IMPaCT will promote research in personalized preventive medicine in eye health, with the purpose of reducing visual impairment.
Ultimately, AMBISiON-IMPaCT will qualitatively strengthen the IMPaCT cohort in three key areas:
The project will promote precision preventive medicine in Spain through the consolidation of the IMPaCT cohort.
To evaluate the usefulness of these signatures as biomarkers of early damage related to environmental exposures; and 4) To develop predictive models that combine retinal biomarkers with genetic and environmental information for the development of precision medicine.