UK Biobank (core renewal)
Lead Research Organisation:
UK Biobank
Department Name: UNLISTED
Abstract
UK Biobank is supported by The Wellcome Trust, The National Institute of Health Research, The Medical Research Council, The British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK. The figures presented on this record represent the Medical Research Council funding contribution only with some additional UKRI Infrastructure funds in addition.
UK Biobank is a prospective study of 500,000 men and women aged 40-69 years at the point of recruitment (2006-10). The study has collected extensive phenotypic and genotypic detail about its participants, including data from questionnaires, physical measures, sample assays, accelerometery, imaging, genome-wide genotyping and long-term longitudinal follow-up for a wide range of health-related outcomes. The resource is regularly augmented with additional data and is available to academic or commercial researchers world-wide to use for any type of health-related research that is in the public interest. It has been established primarily for the conduct of prospective studies investigating the relevance of a wide range of exposures to health outcomes that occur during long-term follow-up. The ongoing identification and adjudication of increasing numbers of incident cases of the commoner conditions in the resource will support extensive and powerful research into their determinants and the range of diseases that can be studied reliably will widen as the numbers of incident events of different types increase during follow-up over the next 5-10 year period. As a result, UK Biobank provides researchers from around the world with greater opportunities to better understand early disease stages and their diagnosis, and can support the development of new treatments for diseases of mid-to-later life.
UK Biobank is a prospective study of 500,000 men and women aged 40-69 years at the point of recruitment (2006-10). The study has collected extensive phenotypic and genotypic detail about its participants, including data from questionnaires, physical measures, sample assays, accelerometery, imaging, genome-wide genotyping and long-term longitudinal follow-up for a wide range of health-related outcomes. The resource is regularly augmented with additional data and is available to academic or commercial researchers world-wide to use for any type of health-related research that is in the public interest. It has been established primarily for the conduct of prospective studies investigating the relevance of a wide range of exposures to health outcomes that occur during long-term follow-up. The ongoing identification and adjudication of increasing numbers of incident cases of the commoner conditions in the resource will support extensive and powerful research into their determinants and the range of diseases that can be studied reliably will widen as the numbers of incident events of different types increase during follow-up over the next 5-10 year period. As a result, UK Biobank provides researchers from around the world with greater opportunities to better understand early disease stages and their diagnosis, and can support the development of new treatments for diseases of mid-to-later life.
Technical Summary
The UK Biobank resource has been established primarily for the conduct of prospective studies investigating the relevance of a wide range of exposures to health outcomes that occur during long-term follow-up. There are now sufficient numbers of incident cases of the commoner conditions to support extensive and powerful research into their determinants.
There is regular augmentation of UK Biobank’s capability for effective use as a prospective resource by the widest possible range of researchers. This activity has included: streamlining resource access management systems; imaging assessments; an agile response to the SARS-2 Covid pandemic; ‘omics; whole genome sequencing and turning biological samples into genotypic and biomarker data to make the resource more accessible to researchers studying a wide range of different conditions.
During the next few years, it is intended to develop UK Biobank as a UK national infrastructure and the resource will move to new premises at the University of Manchester where sample throughput will be accelerated with new robotics and freezer systems, making more large scale studies possible. UK Biobank will make increasing amounts of genotype and biomarker data available. It will seek to extend cohort-wide record linkage to primary care health; develop other linkages relevant to health; complete imaging assessments on close to 100,000 participants, including repeat imaging on a subset; develop and implement further enhancements (such as metabolomics) and introduce changes relating to participant involvement and to address equality diversity and inclusion. Communications will be expanded to a wider audience to help ensure that researchers from around the world are well informed about UK Biobank’s enhanced capabilities in order to maximise suitable use of the resource over the next few years.
There is regular augmentation of UK Biobank’s capability for effective use as a prospective resource by the widest possible range of researchers. This activity has included: streamlining resource access management systems; imaging assessments; an agile response to the SARS-2 Covid pandemic; ‘omics; whole genome sequencing and turning biological samples into genotypic and biomarker data to make the resource more accessible to researchers studying a wide range of different conditions.
During the next few years, it is intended to develop UK Biobank as a UK national infrastructure and the resource will move to new premises at the University of Manchester where sample throughput will be accelerated with new robotics and freezer systems, making more large scale studies possible. UK Biobank will make increasing amounts of genotype and biomarker data available. It will seek to extend cohort-wide record linkage to primary care health; develop other linkages relevant to health; complete imaging assessments on close to 100,000 participants, including repeat imaging on a subset; develop and implement further enhancements (such as metabolomics) and introduce changes relating to participant involvement and to address equality diversity and inclusion. Communications will be expanded to a wider audience to help ensure that researchers from around the world are well informed about UK Biobank’s enhanced capabilities in order to maximise suitable use of the resource over the next few years.
Organisations
- UK Biobank (Lead Research Organisation)
- AbbVie Inc (Collaboration)
- AstraZeneca (Collaboration)
- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Collaboration)
- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Collaboration)
- Pfizer Inc (Collaboration)
- Takeda Pharmaceutical Company (Collaboration)
- Bristol-Myers Squibb (Collaboration)
- Biogen Idec (Collaboration)
- GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) (Collaboration)
People |
ORCID iD |
| Rory Collins (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Lehrer S
(2021)
Endometrial Cancer, BRCA1, and BRCA2 in the UK Biobank Cohort.
in American journal of clinical oncology
Zhang Z
(2023)
Associations of Air Pollution and Genetic Risk With Incident Dementia: A Prospective Cohort Study.
in American journal of epidemiology
Kim W
(2021)
Genome-Wide Gene-by-Smoking Interaction Study of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
in American journal of epidemiology
Salinas YD
(2021)
Discovery and Mediation Analysis of Cross-Phenotype Associations Between Asthma and Body Mass Index in 12q13.2.
in American journal of epidemiology
Celis-Morales CA
(2018)
Associations of Dietary Protein Intake With Fat-Free Mass and Grip Strength: A Cross-Sectional Study in 146,816 UK Biobank Participants.
in American journal of epidemiology
Meisner A
(2019)
Case-Only Analysis of Gene-Environment Interactions Using Polygenic Risk Scores.
in American journal of epidemiology
Jiang L
(2021)
A Hierarchical Approach Using Marginal Summary Statistics for Multiple Intermediates in a Mendelian Randomization or Transcriptome Analysis.
in American journal of epidemiology
Batty GD
(2022)
Explaining Ethnic Differentials in COVID-19 Mortality: A Cohort Study.
in American journal of epidemiology
Höglund J
(2021)
Characterization of the human ABO genotypes and their association to common inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases in the UK Biobank.
in American journal of hematology
Didikoglu A
(2020)
Seasonality and season of birth effect in the UK Biobank cohort.
in American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council
Meisner A
(2020)
Combined Utility of 25 Disease and Risk Factor Polygenic Risk Scores for Stratifying Risk of All-Cause Mortality.
in American journal of human genetics
Marderstein AR
(2021)
A polygenic-score-based approach for identification of gene-drug interactions stratifying breast cancer risk.
in American journal of human genetics
Ma Y
(2022)
ExPRSweb: An online repository with polygenic risk scores for common health-related exposures.
in American journal of human genetics
Wu Y
(2022)
Fast estimation of genetic correlation for biobank-scale data.
in American journal of human genetics
Browning BL
(2021)
Fast two-stage phasing of large-scale sequence data.
in American journal of human genetics
Kingdom R
(2022)
Rare genetic variants in genes and loci linked to dominant monogenic developmental disorders cause milder related phenotypes in the general population.
in American journal of human genetics
Pazokitoroudi A
(2021)
Quantifying the contribution of dominance deviation effects to complex trait variation in biobank-scale data.
in American journal of human genetics
Zuber V
(2022)
Combining evidence from Mendelian randomization and colocalization: Review and comparison of approaches.
in American journal of human genetics
Venkataraman GR
(2021)
Bayesian model comparison for rare-variant association studies.
in American journal of human genetics
Haas ME
(2018)
Genetic Association of Albuminuria with Cardiometabolic Disease and Blood Pressure.
in American journal of human genetics
Yang S
(2020)
Accurate and Scalable Construction of Polygenic Scores in Large Biobank Data Sets.
in American journal of human genetics
Manousaki D
(2020)
Genome-wide Association Study for Vitamin D Levels Reveals 69 Independent Loci.
in American journal of human genetics
Sorokin EP
(2022)
Analysis of MRI-derived spleen iron in the UK Biobank identifies genetic variation linked to iron homeostasis and hemolysis.
in American journal of human genetics
Huang L
(2022)
TOP-LD: A tool to explore linkage disequilibrium with TOPMed whole-genome sequence data.
in American journal of human genetics
Grinton BE
(2022)
A founder event causing a dominant childhood epilepsy survives 800 years through weak selective pressure.
in American journal of human genetics
| Description | Impact of clinically silent atrial fibrillation on cerebrovascular disease and cognitive decline in the UK Biobank Imaging Cohort |
| Amount | £2,474,260 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | RG/18/6/33576 |
| Organisation | British Heart Foundation (BHF) |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2019 |
| End | 06/2024 |
| Description | UK Biobank - Data Analytics Platform |
| Amount | £20,000,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Wellcome Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 01/2023 |
| Description | UK Biobank - The Repeat Imaging Project |
| Amount | £2,500,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | R39738/CN039 |
| Organisation | MRC Dementias Platform UK |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 01/2023 |
| Description | UK Biobank - Whole genome sequencing of 50,000 UKB participants |
| Amount | £30,000,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 03/2020 |
| Description | UK Biobank- Expansion of the UKB imaging to a 4th centre and repeat imaging assessment of 10,000 participants |
| Amount | £8,500,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 12/2022 |
| Description | Biobank Enhancement |
| Organisation | GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) |
| Country | Global |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | exome sequencing of 50,000 participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | creating vast amounts of genetic data to be used by researchers accessing UKBiobank |
| Impact | exome data |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Biobank Enhancement |
| Organisation | Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | exome sequencing of 50,000 participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | creating vast amounts of genetic data to be used by researchers accessing UKBiobank |
| Impact | exome data |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | AbbVie Inc |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | Alnylam Pharmaceuticals |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | AstraZeneca |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | Biogen Idec |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | Bristol-Myers Squibb |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) |
| Country | Global |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | Pfizer Inc |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Genetic enhancement |
| Organisation | Takeda Pharmaceutical Company |
| Department | Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. (TPUSA) |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Partnership with Regeneron and GSK to complete exome sequencing of 450,000 UKBiobank participants |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exome sequence of 50,000 UKBiobank particpants were generated through a partnership between UKB, Regeneron and GSK. Regeneron is leading a consortium of biopharma (listed) to complete exome sequencing of the remaining 450,000 participants by 2020. GSK has committed an additional £40 million investment to initiatives, such as UKB, that harness advances in genetic research in the development of new medicines. |
| Impact | The first tranche of data have been incorporated back into the UKBiobank resource for the global health community to use. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | UK Biobank GP linkage |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | UK Biobank event for the General Practice Data for Planing and Research programme (GP linkage). 1,200 attendees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | UK Biobank Scientific Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The UK Biobank Scientific Symposium included presentations about the successes and future plans of the UK Biobank. It took place on 21 June 2018 in London |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | UK Biobank Scientific Conference 2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The UK Biobank Scientific Conference in 2021 had 3,000 participants from the research community, professional practitioners, media, study particiapnts and other partners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | UK Biobank participant imaging event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | UK Biobank for participants of the imaging work |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | UKBiobank participant events - 2014 - 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | UKB Biobank participants regularly attend events aimed at informing them about the work being undertaken with their data. Usually, the events last a few hours and include an overview from the chief scientist and two talks from scientists that have used UKB data. From 2014 - 2020 over 4,000 participants have taken part in events in Edinburgh (4), Manchester (4), Nottingham, Leeds, Cardiff (2), Newcastle (5), Glasgow (2), Bristol (2) and Reading(4). They are often over-subscribed and participants leave these events wishing to seek more information and support he programme in new ways (EG in imaging, genome sequencing) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019 |
| URL | http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk |