NUgene, Northwestern’s gene banking project, released its first25 samples ever to a team of researchers studying problems near theabdomen with the aortic artery, which carries blood from the heartto the rest of the body.

Dr. William Pearce, chief of vascular surgery at the FeinbergSchool of Medicine on the Chicago Campus, will lead researchers ontheir quest to find medical treatment for abdominal aorticaneurysms. bulges in the artery that can lead to more serioushealth problems.

One in 10 white males is at risk of developing abdominal aorticaneurysms, which can cause inflammation, blood loss, shock and evendeath, said Vera Shively, an associate researcher at NU. Surgerynow is the only way to treat the disease.

“Some people have medical situations that make it dangerous togo through any kind of surgery,” she said.

Using the genes from NUgene, researchers will examine mutationsassociated with the disease. Shively said they will use the 25genes as a control group of healthy patients, which will becontrasted with the genes of people suffering from aneurysms.

“NUgene helps tremendously,” Shively said. “Truthfully, I don’tknow how we ourselves would be able to recruit the control patient.They have all the data and records ready.”

According to Shively, the team of researchers submitted a grantrequest Tuesday asking for more funding to increase the totalnumber of gene samples from 25 to 125.

The NUgene project holds about 2,000 genes from volunteers, saidWendy Wolf, the project’s director. Sponsored by Feinberg’s Centerfor Genetic Medicine and several NU-affiliated hospitals, the genebank is seeking to recruit 100,000 samples by 2010, she said.

Since 2002 the project has grown to the second-largest gene bankin the nation. The Wisconsin-based Marshfield Personalized MedicineResearch Project is the largest and holds 15,000 gene samples.

“Instead of a disease-focused approach, (NUgene) collects anymedical condition our participant has so it can be useful for anynumber of diseases,” Wolf said.

Wolf added that NUgene is more cost-effective for researchers,preventing them from having to find the samples they need on theirown.

The NUgene project could dramatically speed up the discovery ofdifferent cures for the disease, she said.

“This opens up new areas of medical care in the future if wehave a better understanding of genetic variation,” she said.

Reach Stephanie Chen at [email protected].