Heart OMics in AGEing

As more people survive into old age, the prevalence of heart failure (HF), one of the most common and debilitating diseases in older people, will rise still further. Delaying or preventing HF will have great benefit to those at personal risk, their families, society and the economy. HOMAGE aims to provide a biomarker (BM) approach that will a) help identify i. patients at high risk of developing HF before the onset of symptoms and ii. subsets of patients who are more likely to respond to specifically targeted therapies (personalized medicine). In available cohorts, we will identify the most promising omics-based BM profiles for the pre-symptomatic diagnosis and future prediction of HF in patients at risk. The predictive value of the BMs for other co-morbidities commonly associated with HF and ageing will also be investigated.
Furthermore, in a prospective trial, we will investigate the potential for targeting preventive therapy at patients with the greatest likelihood of response and the lowest risk of adverse effects. Our selection of innovative omics-based BMs is based on knowledge of biological pathways of the disease, which may facilitate identification of Biotargets for future therapies. On the economic side, HOMAGE will act as an economic catalyst for European SMEs in the field of cardiovascular and ageing BMs, estimated to peak annual turnovers of up to 800 M.