Uk Biobank Limited

UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource, containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million UK participants. The database, which is regularly augmented with additional data, is globally accessible to approved researchers and scientists undertaking vital research into the most common and life-threatening diseases. UK Biobank’s research resource is a major contributor to the advancement of modern medicine and treatment and has enabled several scientific discoveries that improve human health.

Since 2006, UK Biobank has collected an unprecedented amount of biological and medical data on half a million people, aged between 40 and 69 years old and living in the UK, as part of a large-scale prospective study. With their consent they regularly provide blood, urine and saliva samples, as well as detailed information about their lifestyle which is then linked to their health-related records to provide a deeper understanding of how individuals experience diseases.

The data – the largest and richest dataset of its kind – is anonymised and made widely accessible by UK Biobank to researchers around the world who use it to make new scientific discoveries about common and life-threatening diseases – such as cancer, heart disease and stroke – in order to improve public health.

UK Biobank has achieved these ambitions through the support of its visionary funders, the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Department of Health, Scottish Government, and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The organisation has over 200 dedicated members of staff, based in multiple locations across the UK.

UK Biobank is the most detailed, long-term prospective health research study in the world, enabling the international scientific community to better understand a range of common and life-threatening diseases. We continue to maintain this focus through the adoption of pioneering technologies and regular health follow-up on half a million participants. Our actions support the vision of the health research community to improve the future health of millions of people.

Since inception, UK Biobank has adopted pioneering technology to support its world-leading biomedical resource. For example, collecting and storing samples from half a million participants (into 10 million separate tubes) required an innovative solution and led to advances in the field to develop the UK Biobank automated freezer.

The ability to transform the biological samples into data that can be used by researchers (such as genomic data, and data on circulating levels of hormones, metabolites and proteins) is crucial to advance our understanding of disease. As technologies advance, we are able to extract the biological samples to perform measurements that are at the cutting-edge of life sciences.