Who are we?
About Urimon
The Urimon study: an initial study to investigate what changes occur in the profile of a series of substances during the development of a serious disease.
The diseases we are researching are cancer (all forms), cardiovascular diseases such as stroke or heart attack and diseases of the central nervous system such as Parkinson’s, MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and Alzheimer’s disease.
The importance of screening
The research questions of the study are:
- Is it possible to use the profile of this series of substances in blood or urine to get an early warning of the onset of serious diseases?
- Do the specific changes in the profile of the substances give an indication which disease is developing?
Our approach
If we find changes in the profile of substances in samples taken before physical symptoms manifested, we will have answered the first research question positively. If we find different changes in people who develop cancer from those who develop cardiovascular disease, we have answered the second research question positively. Based on the answers to the two research questions, we will be able to make the decision to continue and expand the study or discontinue the study.
It is not yet possible to diagnose diseases with our measurements, so participants also do not risk that we “accidentally” find something. Instead, our research is designed to investigate whether that is possible in the future.
We adhere to the guidelines for good and ethical (medical) practice. For general information on your rights when processing your personal data, please consult the privacy statement and disclaimer at the bottom of this website. You can also consult the website of the Personal Data Authority.
Medical Scientific Research
About Stibion Biobank
Stibion stands for Stichting Biobank Oost Nederland and is based in Enschede. The objective of the Biobank is to enable and support research into health monitoring and early detection of disease. It is a non-profit foundation and it was set up specifically to enable the Urimon research. Stibion processes and stores your material and data according to the latest guidelines and strictest safety standards, and is supervised by the Biobanks Review Committee (TCBio) of the Utrecht University Medical Centre. Other parties (universities, research institutes and companies) can also request samples from the Biobank, if a participant gives permission for this. Those requests will be assessed for quality and purpose, as they may only be used for health monitoring and early detection of disease. Release of material and data is always coded and therefore anonymous. In this way, your samples may also help studies other than Urimon to make health monitoring and early disease detection a reality as soon as possible.
About You2Yourself
The company You2Yourself (Y2Y) focuses on developing a “disease warning system” that may allow us to detect serious diseases earlier in the future. Y2Y is paying for the Urimon research and the system Y2Y envisages is likely to detect the onset of disease and indicate exactly which disease is developing. With this information, a doctor can conduct further research in the future and thus prevent a serious disease from being detected too late.
Technology
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Blood and urine analysis
The substances we will measure in the blood and urine samples belong to the class of nucleic acids. We determine their concentration using so-called Next Generation Sequencing methods. We do not perform measurements that say anything about heredity or risks of hereditary diseases. Our measurements only provide a snapshot of the situation at the time of blood or urine collection. It is not yet possible to diagnose diseases this way, so one does not run the risk of finding something “by accident” either. Our study aims to investigate whether that could be possible in the future.
We will determine the concentration of 500-1000 different substances in each blood or urine sample. This makes this study one of the so-called “big data” analyses. Advanced statistical analysis methods will be used to look for patterns that detect disease in the large amount of data we obtain from the samples.