Vital health data is banked by project

PAULINE BALAC, senior lecturer in biology, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield

HAVE you received an invitation to take part in UK Biobank?

UK Biobank is a national medical research project involving 500,000 people between 40 and 69 years of age from all over the United Kingdom.

The aim of the project is to study the role of genes, lifestyle and environment in the development of serious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia and joint problems.

The two biggest causes of death in the UK are circulatory diseases (heart disease and stroke) and cancers, each accounting for approximately a third of all deaths.

For middle-aged men, circulatory disease is the main cause of death, whereas in middle-aged women, cancer is the biggest killer.

UK Biobank is a charity which has been set up by the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. It is also supported by the Welsh Assembly Government and various other health research charities.

People in the target age group are being identified by contact details in NHS records (without access to medical information) and invited by letter to join the study.

All sorts of people are needed by the project, whether they are in good health or have health problems — and the target of recruiting half a million people has nearly been reached.

Participation involves a single visit of about two to three hours to a local UK Biobank assessment centre.

There are questions about health, lifestyle and diet, memory, work and family history.

There are some standard medical tests, including non-invasive measurements of blood pressure, body fat, vision, grip strength, bone density and lung function. There are also collections of small samples of blood, urine and saliva.

Subsequently, UK Biobank will follow your health through routine medical records for many years afterwards. Participation is entirely voluntary on the basis of informed written consent.

The blood and urine samples are processed and then stored in a giant freezer centre near Stockport. This freezer archive, which was officially opened by HRH Princess Anne last July, will store 10 million samples at minus 80 degrees celsius for the next 30 years or more.

Each sample is identified by a unique barcode, so that the individual donor remains anonymous.

The robotic-controlled freezer store, which cost £4.5 million to build, has to be kept frost-free so that the barcodes can be read and the samples successfully retrieved in years to come.

Why is the UK Biobank project so important ?

The study of factors affecting the health and illnesses of populations is known as epidemiology.

It was Sir Richard Doll who, 60 years ago, turned this subject into a rigorous science. In 1950, he jointly published a study in the British Medical Journal on 650 lung cancer patients in 20 London hospitals, which found that tobacco smoking was the one factor they had in common.

Over the next four years a second study of 40,000 doctors, asking whether they smoked and monitoring if they went on to develop carcinoma of the lung, confirmed the link between smoking and lung cancer.

Subsequently the UK government issued public health warnings about tobacco, based on this evidence.

Sir Richard Doll stopped smoking as a result of his findings and he died just five years ago, aged 92.

UK Biobank will be a huge resource of information to be used by scientists in the future.

By following people through health records and then returning to samples for testing, it will enable scientists to find links between particular diseases and diet, geography, lifestyle, genetics and so on.

Not only can the major diseases be studied, but also rarer conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and motor neurone disease.

New techniques may be available for analysis in 10 or 20 years time and all the samples will already have been collected, processed and waiting. This generation of middle-aged people will probably not see any direct benefit, but if some diseases can have improved treatment, or even be eradicated in the future, then what better legacy to pass on to your children or grandchildren?

More information is available at www.ukbiobank.ac.uk .