Project Manager
Dumanski, JanProject manager
Uppsala UniversityAmount granted
2 000 000 SEKYear
2015
Women and men have different sets of sex chromosomes; women have two Xs and men have one X and one Y. It is also known that men have a shorter life expectancy compared to women, but the underlying mechanisms behind these differences are not understood.
We have recently discovered that a lifelong loss of chromosome Y (abbreviated as LOY) in normal blood cells in adult or aging men is associated with: a) shorter survival and a significant risk of developing cancer in many different organs of the body; b) greatly increased risk of Alzheimer's disease; and c) smoking is strongly associated with LOY, which may explain why smoking is a major risk factor for cancer and Alzheimer's disease in men and, by extension, why men live shorter lives on average than women.
We want to develop the possibilities of using LOY as a biomarker to assess the risk of cancer or Alzheimer's disease. We expect to prove that LOY in men has a strong effect on the risk of developing cancer and Alzheimer's disease, which could eventually lead to offering a LOY screening program for all adult men. We envision that within 5-15 years, all adult men will benefit from LOY status analysis. Since men on average live shorter lives and have a higher risk of developing cancer, we expect that our results will lead to lower mortality rates in the future among men who are included in LOY testing programs.