The UK Biobank, one of the most detailed large-scale health resources, is now available to researchers worldwide.
It has collated about 20 terabytes of securely stored data, the equivalent of 30,000 CDs on 500,000 Britons.
The unique data resource contains information about 26,000 people with diabetes and 50,000 with joint disorders, 41,000 teetotallers, and 11,000 heart attack patients.
There are plans to add ten times more information if specialised imaging scans on one-fifth of participants gets the go-ahead.
The aim of the biobank is to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
The Department of Health’s chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies said the UK Biobank would be a ‘globally unique resource’ and places the UK ‘at the forefront of the quest to understand why some people develop life-threatening diseases or debilitating conditions’.
The biobank began recruiting volunteers three years ago and already has more than 1,000 separate pieces of information available on volunteers, aged 40–69.
This information will grow as the participants' stored samples are analysed and their health is followed over many years. Results of tests on donated blood, urine and saliva samples, including genetic tests, will be added, as will information about the participants’ physical activity, diet, work and, potentially, body scanning.
Changes in participants’ health will be recorded using electronic records, such as GP records and cancer and death registers. Results from studies using UK Biobank will be put back into the resource for other researchers to use.
‘This is without doubt a very exciting day for medical research, not just in the UK but around the world,’ said UK Biobank principal investigator, Professor Sir Rory Collins.
‘We are grateful to participants for their trust and support so far. But they have not joined the project to see it remain idle; we all want to see the resource used extensively to bring about benefits to health and well-being.’
Participants were recruited from Scotland, England and Wales over four years. Researchers took measurements of height, weight, body fat, hand grip strength, bone density, lung function and blood pressure, along with information about medical histories and lifestyles. Memory, diet, early life factors and psychosocial events (such as how often people see family and friends) were also recorded. The last 100,000 participants also had hearing, fitness and eye tests, creating the biggest eye study ever.
UK Biobank will allow scientists from the UK and overseas working on health-related research that is in the public interest to access the resource to find out why some people develop particular diseases and others do not. Only information that does not identify participants will be provided.
Applications to use the resource will be made online. The UK Biobank team will carry out checks and the Access Sub-Committee of the UK Biobank Board will oversee the process. The independent UK Biobank Ethics and Governance Council will also oversee the system.
