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
People |
ORCID iD |
Rory Collins (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Gale CR
(2017)
When Is Higher Neuroticism Protective Against Death? Findings From UK Biobank.
in Psychological science
Manousaki D
(2017)
Vitamin D levels and susceptibility to asthma, elevated immunoglobulin E levels, and atopic dermatitis: A Mendelian randomization study.
in PLoS medicine
Elovainio M
(2017)
Contribution of risk factors to excess mortality in isolated and lonely individuals: an analysis of data from the UK Biobank cohort study.
in The Lancet. Public health
Lund-Nielsen J
(2018)
Vitamin D and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Mendelian Randomization Analyses in the Copenhagen Studies and UK Biobank.
in The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism
Knutson K
(2018)
Associations between chronotype, morbidity and mortality in the UK Biobank cohort
in Chronobiology International
Ritchie SJ
(2018)
Sex Differences in the Adult Human Brain: Evidence from 5216 UK Biobank Participants.
in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
Emdin CA
(2018)
Analysis of predicted loss-of-function variants in UK Biobank identifies variants protective for disease.
in Nature communications
Sarkar C
(2018)
Residential greenness and prevalence of major depressive disorders: a cross-sectional, observational, associational study of 94 879 adult UK Biobank participants.
in The Lancet. Planetary health
Klimentidis YC
(2018)
Genome-wide association study of habitual physical activity in over 377,000 UK Biobank participants identifies multiple variants including CADM2 and APOE.
in International journal of obesity (2005)
Ramírez J
(2018)
Thirty loci identified for heart rate response to exercise and recovery implicate autonomic nervous system.
in Nature communications
Tikkanen E
(2018)
Biological Insights Into Muscular Strength: Genetic Findings in the UK Biobank.
in Scientific reports
Nagpal S
(2018)
Pervasive Modulation of Obesity Risk by the Environment and Genomic Background
in Genes
Dhalwani NN
(2018)
Body mass index and mortality in people with and without diabetes: A UK Biobank study.
in Nutrition, metabolism, and cardiovascular diseases : NMCD
Sodini SM
(2018)
Comparison of Genotypic and Phenotypic Correlations: Cheverud's Conjecture in Humans.
in Genetics
Lindholm D
(2018)
Bioimpedance and New-Onset Heart Failure: A Longitudinal Study of >500 000 Individuals From the General Population.
in Journal of the American Heart Association
Choi SH
(2018)
Association Between Titin Loss-of-Function Variants and Early-Onset Atrial Fibrillation.
in JAMA
Darling AL
(2018)
Vitamin D supplement use and associated demographic, dietary and lifestyle factors in 8024 South Asians aged 40-69 years: analysis of the UK Biobank cohort.
in Public health nutrition
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
Sarkar C
(2018)
Are exposures to ready-to-eat food environments associated with type 2 diabetes? A cross-sectional study of 347 551 UK Biobank adult participants.
in The Lancet. Planetary health
Cassidy S
(2018)
Accelerometer-derived physical activity in those with cardio-metabolic disease compared to healthy adults: a UK Biobank study of 52,556 participants.
in Acta diabetologica
Yengo L
(2018)
Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for height and body mass index in ~700000 individuals of European ancestry.
in Human molecular genetics
Au Yeung SL
(2018)
The Impact of Glycated Hemoglobin (HbA1c) on Cardiovascular Disease Risk: A Mendelian Randomization Study Using UK Biobank.
in Diabetes care
Howard DM
(2018)
Genome-wide association study of depression phenotypes in UK Biobank identifies variants in excitatory synaptic pathways.
in Nature communications
Ong JS
(2018)
Vitamin D and overall cancer risk and cancer mortality: a Mendelian randomization study.
in Human molecular genetics
Iliodromiti S
(2018)
The impact of confounding on the associations of different adiposity measures with the incidence of cardiovascular disease: a cohort study of 296 535 adults of white European descent.
in European heart journal
Palamara PF
(2018)
High-throughput inference of pairwise coalescence times identifies signals of selection and enriched disease heritability.
in Nature genetics
Clifton EAD
(2018)
Genome-wide association study for risk taking propensity indicates shared pathways with body mass index.
in Communications biology
Peeri NC
(2018)
Toenail selenium, genetic variation in selenoenzymes and risk and outcome in glioma.
in Cancer epidemiology
Rüeger S
(2018)
Evaluation and application of summary statistic imputation to discover new height-associated loci.
in PLoS genetics
Horikoshi M
(2018)
Elucidating the genetic architecture of reproductive ageing in the Japanese population.
in Nature communications
Peters SAE
(2018)
Sex Differences in the Association Between Measures of General and Central Adiposity and the Risk of Myocardial Infarction: Results From the UK Biobank.
in Journal of the American Heart Association
Zemedikun DT
(2018)
Patterns of Multimorbidity in Middle-Aged and Older Adults: An Analysis of the UK Biobank Data.
in Mayo Clinic proceedings
Zhou A
(2018)
Habitual coffee consumption and cognitive function: a Mendelian randomization meta-analysis in up to 415,530 participants
in Scientific Reports
Owen D
(2018)
Effects of pathogenic CNVs on physical traits in participants of the UK Biobank.
in BMC genomics
Larsson SC
(2018)
Circulating Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels and Bone Mineral Density: Mendelian Randomization Study.
in Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
O'Mara TA
(2018)
Identification of nine new susceptibility loci for endometrial cancer.
in Nature communications
Rao AS
(2018)
Large-Scale Phenome-Wide Association Study of PCSK9 Variants Demonstrates Protection Against Ischemic Stroke.
in Circulation. Genomic and precision medicine
Mc Menamin ÚC
(2018)
Hormonal and reproductive factors and risk of upper gastrointestinal cancers in men: A prospective cohort study within the UK Biobank.
in International journal of cancer
Doherty A
(2018)
GWAS identifies 14 loci for device-measured physical activity and sleep duration.
in Nature communications
Davies G
(2018)
Study of 300,486 individuals identifies 148 independent genetic loci influencing general cognitive function.
in Nature communications
Tong TY
(2018)
Anthropometric and physiologic characteristics in white and British Indian vegetarians and nonvegetarians in the UK Biobank.
in The American journal of clinical nutrition
Lai FY
(2018)
Adult height and risk of 50 diseases: a combined epidemiological and genetic analysis.
in BMC medicine
Sarkar C
(2018)
Neighbourhood walkability and incidence of hypertension: Findings from the study of 429,334 UK Biobank participants.
in International journal of hygiene and environmental health
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 | 07/2019 |
End | 06/2024 |
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 | 04/2019 |
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 | 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 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 |