Cohort profile: the Emory Cardiovascular Biobank (EmCAB)

The Emory Cardiovascular Biobank (EmCAB) is an ongoing prospective registry of patients undergoing cardiac catheterisation, which was established to identify novel factors associated with the pathobiological process and treatment of cardiovascular disease.

Individuals aged 18 years and older undergoing cardiac catheterisation at three Emory Healthcare sites in Atlanta are asked to participate in this prospective registry. Around 95% agree to participate. Around 7000 unique patients have been enrolled. The current data set contains detailed phenotyping, patient outcomes, genomics, protein biomarkers, regenerative markers, transcriptomic analysis, metabolomics profiling and longitudinal follow-up for adverse cardiovascular outcomes.

Thus far, the EmCAB has approximately 3000 major cardiovascular events. About 48% of the EmCAB participants have more than 5 years of follow-up. It is a great resource for discovery of novel predictive factors for cardiovascular disease outcomes, including genomics, transcriptomics, protein biomarkers, oxidative stress markers and circulating progenitor cells. Several circulating inflammatory markers have shown to improve risk prediction metrics beyond standard risk factors.

Future integrative -omics analyses will provide the cardiovascular research community opportunities for subsequent mechanistic confirmation studies, which will promote the development of effective personalised therapy that leads to clinical care tailored to the individual patient.