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
Hou T
(2022)
The Causal Effect of Systolic Blood Pressure Lowering on Vascular Outcomes in Diabetes: A Mendelian Randomization Study
in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
Hou W
(2022)
Investigating the influence of breastfeeding on asthma in children under 12 years old in the UK Biobank
in Frontiers in Immunology
Hou Y
(2022)
Associations of frailty with cardiovascular disease and life expectancy: A prospective cohort study
in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics
Howard DM
(2018)
Genome-wide association study of depression phenotypes in UK Biobank identifies variants in excitatory synaptic pathways.
in Nature communications
Howard DM
(2020)
Genetic stratification of depression in UK Biobank.
in Translational psychiatry
Howard DM
(2019)
Genome-wide meta-analysis of depression identifies 102 independent variants and highlights the importance of the prefrontal brain regions.
in Nature neuroscience
Howarth S
(2022)
Missed opportunities in the treatment of Turner syndrome: a case discussion and review of the guidelines.
in BMJ case reports
Howe LD
(2020)
Effects of body mass index on relationship status, social contact and socio-economic position: Mendelian randomization and within-sibling study in UK Biobank.
in International journal of epidemiology
Howe LJ
(2020)
Evaluating shared genetic influences on nonsyndromic cleft lip/palate and oropharyngeal neoplasms.
in Genetic epidemiology
Howe LJ
(2020)
Polygenic risk scores for coronary artery disease and subsequent event risk amongst established cases.
in Human molecular genetics
Howe LJ
(2019)
Genetic evidence for assortative mating on alcohol consumption in the UK Biobank.
in Nature communications
Howe LJ
(2022)
Interpreting Mendelian-randomization estimates of the effects of categorical exposures such as disease status and educational attainment.
in International journal of epidemiology
Howe LJ
(2022)
Evaluating indirect genetic effects of siblings using singletons.
in PLoS genetics
Howe LJ
(2021)
Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
in PLoS genetics
Hu HY
(2022)
Tea consumption and risk of incident dementia: A prospective cohort study of 377 592 UK Biobank participants.
in Translational psychiatry
Hu HY
(2022)
Association between multimorbidity status and incident dementia: a prospective cohort study of 245,483 participants.
in Translational psychiatry
Hu HY
(2023)
Residential greenness and risk of incident dementia: A prospective study of 375,342 participants.
in Environmental research
Hu J
(2022)
Association between fat mass and mortality: analysis of Mendelian randomization and lifestyle modification.
in Metabolism: clinical and experimental
Hu J
(2022)
Associations of visceral adipose tissue with bone mineral density and fracture: observational and Mendelian randomization studies.
in Nutrition & metabolism
Hu M
(2023)
Causal relationship between moderate to vigorous physical activity and venous thromboembolism.
in Journal of thrombosis and thrombolysis
Hu W
(2022)
Association of Visual, Hearing, and Dual Sensory Impairment With Incident Dementia.
in Frontiers in aging neuroscience
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 |