36 / NeuroDevNet Annual Report 2012 / 2013 / Featured Themes: International Prominence
FEATURED THEMES: INTERNATIONAL PROMINENCE
FASD dataset attracts international interest NeuroDevNet FASD researchers and their French counterparts await approval from the French Government on a promising epigenetics collaboration on Reunion Island. This small island is an overseas department of France located in the Indian Ocean, between Mauritius and Madagascar. About five percent of the pregnancies among the ethnically diverse population of 700,000 involve alcohol exposure. High levels of alcoholism, a stable population, and the commitment of local authorities to intervene to prevent FASD make the collaboration highly desirable. “We’re trying to find a particular pattern of epigenetic abnormality that may predict vulnerability or protection to prenatal alcohol exposure,” says Albert Chudley, co-lead of NeuroDevNet’s FASD research group. French researchers have data from about 200 people affected by FASD, including islanders of European Caucasians, Chinese, South Asians, Africans, and Creole backgrounds. A comparison with NeuroDevNet’s data, drawn from the Canadian population would yield valuable insights, Chudley says. “If we find similar patterns and variants involving FASD, that’s very powerful from a genetic point of view. We may also find different patterns—that’s the real reason why we’re interested.” Approval at a governmental level has been slow to come, but both groups of researchers continue to pursue their vision of educational exchange, and development of new programs for diagnosis and research platforms. Chudley says the project is worth waiting for. “We applied for some funding from Genome Canada—there’s good potential down the road for commercialization.”