World’s largest health information project meets recruitment milestone
17 April 2008
UK Biobank, the multi-million pound medical initiative with a goal to improve the health of future generations, has recruited its 100,000th participant – in exactly one year.
The achievement puts the ambitious health project, part-funded by the Medical Research Council, well on the way to its target of 500,000 participants by the end of 2010.
UK Biobank, which aims to collect health and lifestyle information, body measurements and donations of blood and urine from people aged 40 to 69, began recruitment in Manchester in April 2007. Since then it has opened assessment centres in Oxford, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Leeds, and will shortly open in Reading and Bristol.
Oxford University’s Professor Rory Collins, UK Biobank’s Principal Investigator, said reaching 100,000 was a significant milestone. “It has been very exciting to see the project evolve from idea to reality. I think we are now really beginning to get a sense of just what an important and powerful tool UK Biobank is going to be in helping to alleviate suffering in years to come,” he said.
The most detailed study of its kind, UK Biobank will help scientists and doctors find out why some people get particular diseases such as cancer, heart and lung disease and dementia, and others do not. The work will help develop improved treatments and prevention methods and improve public health.
Over the past year the project has stored more than 1.5 million samples of blood in sub-zero temperatures and written to more than 1 million people in England, Scotland and Wales to ask them to participate.
UK Biobank is a collaborative effort being led by scientists from the universities of Manchester, Oxford, Glasgow, Cardiff, Leicester and Imperial College London. It has the support of the NHS, the Royal College of General Practitioners and a number of leading medical health charities, including British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK and the Arthritis Research Campaign. It is funded by the MRC, Wellcome Trust Department of Health, and the Scottish Executive.
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