Using Genetics to Understand and Increase Smoking Cessation
Overview
Over a quarter of the Australian population continue to smoke cigarettes despite numerous public health campaigns concerning the adverse health effects of smoking. While some smokers have no desire to quit, for many the process of quitting is difficult, with less than 5% of unassisted quit attempts proving successful in the long term. The overall goals of this project are to investigate how genes and environment influence smoking cessation, and whether genetic information could be used to assist in selecting smoking cessation aids, such as nicotine patches or pharmaceutical drugs.
To this end, the
aims of this project are as follows:
1) To estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental influences to
variation in individual ability to quit smoking and response to smoking cessation
aids.
2) To identify genomic regions that may contain genes that influence ability
to quit smoking, or response to smoking cessation aids.
3) To investigate the economic feasibility of using genetic susceptibility
testing as part of the eligibility criteria for bupropion or nortriptyline
prescription, and the impact of this on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
(PBS).
OPPE Staff
Katherine Morley and Wayne Hall (supervisor)
Collaborators
Susan Treloar (supervisor)
and Nicholas Martin, Genetic
Epidemiology Laboratory, Queensland Institute of Medical Research
Pamela Madden, Andrew
Health and Michael Lynskey, Department
of Psychiatry, University of Washington, St Louis, USA
Status
Analyses of twin data are currently being undertaken
Outcomes
This work is Katherine Morley's PhD project. Papers will also be published in peer-reviewed journals.
Funding
Australian
Rotary Health Research Fund Ian Scott Fellowship (to Katherine Morley)
National
Institutes of Health Grant (to Pamela Madden, Andrew Health and
Nicholas Martin)
OPPE
Contact webmaster: oppe@uq.edu.au
Last updated: 9 September 2004