The proteins in your blood can reveal early signs of heart problems

Heart disease often develops silently, but big data provides new insights that may make it easier to detect risk.

This is shown by a new study led by Sean Bankier. He is a researcher at the University of Bergen's Department of Informatics.

Bankier uses bioinformatics – a field that merges biology, computer science, and statistics – to understand the body’s complex system of blood proteins and how these proteins interact with the heart. 

Together with researchers from Bergen and Reykjavík, he has analysed 30 years of data from the Icelandic Heart Association, Hjartavernd. The goal was to identify proteins linked to common heart conditions.

New data analysis methods 

Instead of studying individual proteins, the researchers mapped them as one large system. 

This made it possible to uncover connections between blood protein levels and future risk of heart disease.

“I was very surprised by how clear the links were,” says Bankier.

However it's still unclear how and why the proteins influence each other and the body’s organs, he explains.

“Some proteins react with one another in the bloodstream. Others are absorbed by organs and released again in new forms,” he says.

This makes interpretation challenging, but Bankier believes the new analytical methods look promising for future heart patients.

May reduce the need for invasive tests

These new methods may improve diagnostics and patient follow-up.

The researcher hopes the findings will help extract more information from blood samples. In the long term, this could reduce the need for more invasive tests, such as biopsies.

He says that the use of data driven tools and bioinformatics has enabled discoveries that would not have been possible through molecular biology laboratory work alone.

With bioinformatics, researchers can make predictions about entire biological systems. 

"You cannot cure disease using data alone, but data has become an essential part of medical research. I don't see these as an alternative to labwork, they are symbiotic,” says Bankier.

If the new method is generalised, it can also be used to find risks of other diseases.

“This analysis is transferable. That's a huge advantage. We already see how these networks can be used to detect other conditions, such as cancer,” he says.

Reference:

Bankier et al. Circulating causal protein networks linked to future risk of myocardial infarction, Nature Communications, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-67135-3

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