United Coronary Biobanks

The UNICORN consists of two collaborating biobanks, one in Utrecht and one in Singapore. From these two sites we include all patients who undergo a coronary catheterization for any reason. At the moment of catheterization we draw blood, which will be stored in a biobank and we collect clinical characteristics. Patients are followed-up for 5 years for the occurrence of major cardiovascular events. By including from two sites in the world we include 4 major ethnic groups: Caucasians, Chinese, Indians and Malays. We aim at including at least 2000 patients per ethnic group. Our hypothesis is that there are differences in the risk factor burden, clinical presentation of CAD, and biochemical patterns in the blood among the ethnic groups. Furthermore, this biobank offers a platform for multi-ethnic biomarker discovery.