UK Biobank

UK Biobank is a proposed large long-term study in the United Kingdomintended to investigate the respective contributions of geneticpredisposition and environmental exposure (including nutrition, lifestyle, medications etc.) to the development of disease. It is scheduled to begin in 2006.

Design

The study will follow about 500,000 volunteers aged 40-69 over a period of up to 30 years. Upon enrollment, the participant will fill out a questionnaire and will be interviewed about lifestyle, medical history and nutritional habits; basic variables such weight, height, blood pressure etc. are measured; and blood and urine samples are taken. These samples will be preserved so that it is possible to later extract DNAand measure other biologically important substances. A second interview takes place some 5 years later. During the whole duration of the study, all disease events, drug prescriptions and deaths of the participants are recorded in a database, taking advantage of the centralized UK National Health Service.<ref name=draft>Draft protocol for the UK Biobank, 14 February 2002</ref><ref>Reviewers' comments on Draft protocol, and responses</ref>

If any medical problems are detected during the initial physical, the participant's physician will be notified. Problems detected later, such as genetic risk factors, will not be communicated to the participant.<ref name=ns>Andy Coghlan: One million people, one medical gamble. New Scientist, 20 January 2006 </ref>

Once the data collection has been underway for a number of years, researchers can apply to use the database. A typical study would compare a sample of participants who developed a particular disease, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetesor Alzheimer's disease, with a sample of those that did not, in an attempt to measure the risk contribution and interaction of specific genes, lifestyles, and drugs.

Funding

The UK Biobank is funded by the UK Department of Health, the Medical Research Council, the Scottish Executive, and the Wellcome Trustmedical research charity. The amount needed is 61 million UKP.

Related projects

EPIC(European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition) is a similar study that involves 370,000 participants from nine European countries; it is specifically designed to study the respective roles of diet and genes in the development of cancer. <ref name=draft/>

As of 2006, a similar project by the U.S. National Human Genome Research Instituteis in the planning stages.<ref name=ns />

Sources

<references/>

External links

• UK Biobank home page

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK+Biobank Wikipedia article UK Biobank.