Genetic Insights into Septic Shock

Septic shock is a serious and life-threatening complication of sepsis. Progressive organ failure can reduce life expectancy to less than three months in one-third of patients. This session considers how one’s genes may be linked to the development of septic shock and what this might mean for novel therapies.

Educators

David Evans 

David Evans is a professor of statistical genetics and head of genomic medicine at the niversity of Queensland Diamantina Institute, and honorary professor at the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol. He completed his PhD in statistical genetics at the University of Queensland in 2003, before undertaking a four-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford. In 2007, he moved to take up a senior lecturer position at the University of Bristol, before returning in 2013 to Australia to take up his current position at the University of Queensland. David has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, including several first and senior author publications in Nature and Nature Genetics. He has led the discovery of over 300 different genetic variants underlying common, complex traits and diseases, and has made major contributions to statistical genetic methods for gene mapping. In 2015, he and his collaborators were awarded a project grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council to study the genetic and genomic basis of septic shock. The project, called the “ADRENAL GEPS” study, represents one of the largest genetic studies of sepsis ever performed. He and his colleagues are currently analysing the genomes of 570 patients suffering from septic shock and hope to present some preliminary results at the meeting and what they might mean for clinical care.