Following a three-month piloting phase in the Manchester area, the final protocol received unanimous backing from a team of international scientific and medical experts, and from the project’s funders.
The success of the 3,800-participant piloting phase means that, around the end of the year, letters will start going out to men and women aged 40 to 69, who will be invited to attend an assessment center. The aim is to recruit half a million people – nearly 1% of the British population – over the next four years.
UK Biobank will gather, store and protect a vast bank of medical data and material that will allow researchers to study in depth, in decades to come, how the complex interplay of genes, lifestyle and environment affects our risk of disease. It is the first time that such a project has been attempted in such fine detail on such a vast scale.
The final protocol for the GBP61 million project, which is being funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust, the UK Department of Health, the Scottish Executive and the North West Regional Development Agency, has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny by an independent international review panel set up by the funders.
“I am delighted that we have agreed full funding for the program and that large-scale recruitment will start shortly,” commented Dr Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust. “UK Biobank, already watched with envy by researchers across the world, will provide a remarkable resource, allowing us to answer important questions about health and disease. This study has the opportunity to make a real difference to the health of future generations.”