Karnani N

The Singapore National Precision Medicine Strategy

Precision medicine promises to transform healthcare for groups and individuals through early disease detection, refining diagnoses and tailoring treatments. Analysis of large-scale genomic-phenotypic databases is a critical enabler of precision medicine.

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A five-safes approach to a secure and scalable genomics data repository

Genomics, Data encryption, Data storage representation

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Plasma lipidomic profiling reveals metabolic adaptations to pregnancy and signatures of cardiometabolic risk: a preconception and longitudinal cohort stud

Adaptations in lipid metabolism are essential to meet the physiological demands of pregnancy and any aberration may result in adverse outcomes for both mother and offspring. However, there is a lack of population-level studies to define the longitudinal changes of maternal circulating lipids from preconception to postpartum in relation to cardiometabolic risk factors.

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Profiling Microbial Communities in Idiopathic Granulomatous Mastitis

Keywords: idiopathic granulomatous mastitis; metagenomic sequencing; microbiota; 16S rRNA; Corynebacterium; MaAsLin 2

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Longitudinal characterization of determinants associated with obesogenic growth patterns in early childhood

Keywords: Childhood obesity, mother–offspring cohort, growth trajectories, BMI z-score trajectories, group-based trajectory modelling, risk factors for childhood obesity

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Variability in newborn telomere length is explained by inheritance and intrauterine environment

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate newborn TL variation in umbilical cord tissue and report a comprehensive analysis of the effects of heritable factors, socioeconomic status, antenatal maternal health, and nutrition on this variation. It is known that TL is maximal at birth and decreases progressively with advancing age, and thus is considered a marker of biological aging [26]. In our study, we found relative average TL of newborns to be longer than the length of TL observed in their mothers (average maternal age, 31 years old). Maternal TL negatively correlated with maternal age ranging from 18 to 46 years. Newborn TL was not associated with gestational age but showed positive association with parental age. Comparison of the paternal and maternal age effects in the same regression model showed paternal age to have a dominant effect. This finding suggests that offsprings of older mothers could have longer TL in the analysis simply because the offsprings’ fathers were also older. Supporting this hypothesis, we indeed found a strong correlation between the parents’ age in our cohort. Previous studies [37,38,39] have reported increase in sperm TL with age as a potential reason for offsprings of older fathers to inherit longer telomeres. As oocytes are produced prenatally, while sperm are continually produced throughout life, it is believed that there is greater potential for TL plasticity with age in sperms than in oocytes. Effect of paternal age on newborn TL is intriguing as it potentiates a scenario of intergenerational genetic plasticity in which the DNA passed on to the offspring is systematically changed based upon the reproductive age of one’s father.

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Population-based plasma lipidomics reveals developmental changes in metabolism and signatures of obesity risk: a mother-offspring cohort study

Lipids play a vital role in health and disease, but changes to their circulating levels and the link with obesity remain poorly characterized in expecting mothers and their offspring in early childhood.

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