OmegaQuant Receives NIH Grant to Study Fatty Acid Biomarkers for Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glaucoma

OmegaQuant Analytics has been awarded an NIH Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to investigate whether patterns of fatty acids in the blood can help to predict the future risk of age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma.

AMD and glaucoma impact an estimated 20 million and 4 million Americans, respectively, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates. Established risk factors like smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, poor diet, sun exposure, age, sex, and genetics have limited combined predictive ability. Earlier identification of people at heightened risk can help to create preventive strategies before significant vision loss occurs.

The newly funded project, “Developing fatty acid-based algorithms as early predictors of macular degeneration and glaucoma: Applying machine learning to harmonized data from prospective cohort studies,” will investigate whether red blood cell fatty acid patterns can provide additional predictive information beyond traditional risk factors.

Beyond omega-3s, the potential roles of other fatty acids, including trans, omega-6, saturated, and monounsaturated fatty acids, remain unclear, OmegaQuant reported, and the new study will examine patterns across all fatty acid types rather than focusing on a single family.

During Phase I, researchers will harmonize fatty acid measurements, eye health outcomes, and other data from several cohort studies: The Framingham Heart Study, Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and Boston Puerto Rican Health Study. Together, these cohorts provide data from 19,922 individuals, including information on AMD or glaucoma outcomes over an average of more than 10 years of follow-up.

The researchers will use statistical and machine learning approaches to evaluate whether fatty acid patterns in these cohorts correlate with AMD and glaucoma, to generate new potential risk metrics. The study will also explore relationships between fatty acid patterns and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) measures, such as retinal thickness and vessel density.

If Phase I demonstrates proof of concept, the findings could serve as a foundation for larger prospective studies and predictive models in Phase II research.

“Our goal is to determine whether the fatty acid patterns we can measure in a blood sample contain information that could help identify eye disease risk years before serious vision loss occurs,” said Bill Harris, PhD, principal investigator, founder of OmegaQuant, and president of the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI). “If we can develop and ultimately validate these fatty acid-based risk profiles, they could provide clinicians with another tool for identifying patients who may benefit from earlier monitoring or preventive intervention.”