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What’s New With the OHS?

Since 2010, the Ontario Health Study (OHS) has been working hard to build a platform for chronic disease research. Working together with the research community and Ontarians across the province we are now following the health of about 225,000 people and have collected more than 40,000 blood samples. We’re building a database of health information and a biobank so researchers can better understand the link between genetics, lifestyle and environment—and the role they play in our health.

In this section, you’ll find information about the various Study activities and upcoming initiatives.

Blood tubes in the laboratory centrifuge

CanPath Webinar: Trainee Research: Using Population Cohorts to Enable Early Cancer Detection

Jun 16, 2022 // Study Updates

Nicholas Cheng provides an overview of his study on identifying early cancer biomarkers in pre-diagnosis blood samples collected from more than 400 OHS participants. He demonstrates how blood signatures can be used to detect breast, prostate and pancreatic cancers years prior to clinical detection using cfDNA methylation profiles. Kimberly Skead describes her work studying how the interacting

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4 Reasons Researchers Choose the Ontario Health Study

May 4, 2022 // Study Updates

What makes the OHS platform such a useful resource for researchers? OHS Scientific Associate and Epidemiologist Dr. Victoria Kirsh explains what makes the Study so unique: The OHS is designed specifically for investigator-initiated research The OHS enables both retrospective and prospective research The OHS is Ontario’s largest biobank, and is the largest contributing cohort to

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So you want to access OHS data – here are some tips

Apr 1, 2022 // Study Updates

Submitting a fully-completed OHS Data Access Application saves you time and additional work, allowing you to begin your research that much quicker. The OHS Research Operations and Access Officer provides some helpful tips to ensure your access request is successful.

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