Early disease detection is a fundamental aim for improving health. Currently, routine testing to follow how much inflammation burden our body is exposed to over the lifetime is lacking in medical care. Our initial results demonstrate that signs of coronary artery disease progression manifests as changes in cells called macrophages - in aorta, adipose tissue and liver. In arteries, macrophages are the most numerous cell type at plaque sites where inflammation is linked to higher risk of rupture. Information on their properties, cell-cell interactions, number and sites of accumulation, and how these correlate across tissues, is highly valuable for disease prediction. This study will establish methods to follow inflammatory burden based on new PET and tissue imaging methods to detect macrophage phenotypes and genetic risk scoring for stratifying disease disk based on macrophage genes. This system level analysis will have applicability across a wide range of diseases.

2021

2022