UK biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age

Sudlow, Cathie, Gallacher, John Edward ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2394-5299, Allen, Naomi, Beral, Valerie, Burton, Paul, Danesh, John, Downey, Paul, Elliott, Paul, Green, Jane, Landray, Martin, Liu, Bette, Matthews, Paul, Ong, Giok, Pell, Jill, Silman, Alan, Young, Alan, Sprosen, Tim, Peakman, Tim and Collins, Rory 2015. UK biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age. Public Library of Science Medicine 12 (3) , e1001779. 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779

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Abstract

The challenge of understanding the determinants of common life-threatening and disabling conditions is substantial. These conditions are typically caused by a combination of lifestyle, environmental, and genomic factors, with individually modest effects and complex interactions, the detection and quantification of which require studies with large numbers of disease cases. While retrospective case-control studies of particular diseases [1] or existing prospective studies of particular risk factors can help to address this challenge [2,3], a complementary approach is to establish large prospective cohorts designed to study a much wider range of known and novel risk factors for a wide range of diseases [4]. Prospective studies can assess exposures before the onset and treatment of disease, diseases that are not readily investigated by retrospective studies, and both the adverse and beneficial effects of a specific exposure on the lifetime risks of different diseases. UK (United Kingdom) Biobank is a very large, population-based prospective study, established to allow detailed investigations of the genetic and nongenetic determinants of the diseases of middle and old age [5,6]. It aims to combine extensive and precise assessment of exposures with comprehensive follow-up and characterisation of many different health-related outcomes, as well as to promote innovative science by maximising access to the resource. Recruitment of 500,000 participants and the collection of an unprecedented wealth of baseline data and samples were completed in 2010. Activity is now focused on further phenotyping of participants and their health outcomes and on providing access to researchers from around the world.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Subjects:	R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Additional Information:	This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Publisher:	Public Library of Science
ISSN:	1549-1676
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2021
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 22:02
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/88171

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