UK Biobank Research Collaborative
University of Bath: Dylan Thompson
University of Bristol: Cathy Williams
Cardiff University: Jonathan Hewitt (PI), Jeremy Guggenheim
University of Exeter: Jess Tyrell
Background
The UK Biobank is a unique biomedical resource and contains detailed demographic, health, social, genomic and environmental information on half a million UK citizens. These data are linked to a range of health outcomes, such as GP and hospital records and a large proportion of participants have completed cognitive tests, and given blood/DNA samples for genetic studies. One hundred thousand of these people will have detailed MRI imaging undertaken in the next few years.
This resource is an ideal vehicle to address the effects of demographic, genetic and lifestyle variables on health and wellbeing. Additionally, the large range of data it contains allows for innovative environment and societal factors to be studied in relation to heath. The UK Biobank is an on-going and expanding research platform that is likely to provide scientific information for the next forty years and most likely beyond.
Project summary
The funding allowed GW4 colleagues with different backgrounds and expertise to connect and interact through two meetings. These meetings were used to introduce the Biobank resource and to facilitate discussions between the community. Several research themes were identified; these included ageing, neuroimaging, chronic diseases, a range of cancer-based research themes, genetics, environmental epidemiology, diabetes and pleural disease. Going forward, the community aimed to develop these themes into grant proposals using UK Biobank.
