sábado, 17 de julio de 2010

Half A Million Britons Volunteer For World's Most Detailed Health Study



Half A Million Britons Volunteer For World's Most Detailed Health Study
Featured Article
Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Genetics; Cancer / Oncology; Parkinson's Disease
Article Date: 09 Jul 2010 - 2:00 PDT


Half a million Britons have volunteered to take part in the world's most detailed health study: they have given samples, been weighed, measured, answered health and lifestyle questions, and agreed to have their health followed for the next 30 years.

Heralded as a pioneering landmark study that will "help solve the health problems of the 21st Century", UK Biobank announced on Wednesday that it has completed its recruitment phase and has now signed up one in every 50 adults aged 40 to 69 years in Britain.

The project's principal investigator, Professor Rory Collins, from Oxford University, told the press this was a landmark achievement in an ambitious study and he was extremely grateful to the volunteers who have gone out of their way to take part in it.

Collins said the information and samples collected form a valuable resource that:

"... will be available to the best scientific minds wherever they might be, and I am convinced it will make many major contributions to improving the health of future generations."

The resource comprises the most detailed data ever collected in a study. Volunteers have donated samples of blood, urine and saliva for long term storage and analysis and agreed to have their health status followed for 30 years.

They also completed computer-based questionnaires and underwent a battery of assessments and examinations to give information on diet, fitness, lung function, bone density, grip strength, eye health, hearing, arterial stiffness, height, weight, body mass, brain function, and family history of common diseases.

UK Biobank cost 66 million pounds to set up with money from the Wellcome Trust charity, Medical Research Council (MRC), Departmentof Health, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly Government, Northwest Regional Development Agency and the British Heart Foundation.

Manchester University is hosting the project, which started in Manchester in 2007, where the first batch of volunteers were invited to attend an assessment centre in the city. After that the project rolled out to about 20 other centres in England, Scotland and Wales.

The project also has the backing of the NHS, health scientists, universities and other medical charities such as Cancer Research UK, Arthritis Research Campaign, Diabetes UK and the British Lung Foundation.

Senior figures in the sponsoring, hosting and backing organizations spoke this week of the importance of the study and expressed their heartfelt thanks to the volunteers.

Chief Executive of the MRC, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, said the UK Biobank was "one of a kind", and described the volunteers as "local heroes", whose participation will be "invaluable to generations of scientists investigating all types of diseases and how to treat them".

Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said the project will "generate new knowledge about relationships between health, disease, genes and environment for many years to come".

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Director-General, Research and Development, Department of Health, said the UK was a world leader in health research and the effort of the half million volunteers in this new project will help create a "wealth of new knowledge that is relevant to the promotion of good health, the prevention of ill health and the diagnosis and treatment of disease".

UK Biobank's chief scientist, Dr Tim Sprosen also expressed his gratitude to the volunteers, and said that much of the interesting research will be not be done for another ten or twenty years: "the next generation of scientists, who might still be in primary school today, will use new tests and be able to unlock new secrets as to how we prevent disease," he told the BBC.

Using the biobank data scientists will be able to investigate the causes and prevention of many diseases and conditions, including cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, dementia, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and depression, as well as lung and kidney disorders, and will also gain vital insights into why some people develop certain diseases while others do not.

However, researchers who want to use the data will have to submit their study designs for ethics and scientific approval, and they must also put the results of those studies back into the public domain for other scientists to use for the public good, said UK Biobank in a statement.

Also, the data will be provided in a form where it will not be possible to identify participant volunteers.

An independent body, the Ethics & Governance Council (EGC), chaired by Graeme Laurie, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh, is overseeing the project on behalf of the volunteers and the general public.

The biosamples will be kept in a large refrigeration facility in Stockport, Cheshire, south of Manchester.

There are two articles in the International Journal of Epidemiology about UK Biobank's sample handling and storage validation, and its protocol for collecting, processing and archiving of human blood and urine.

As a volunteer participant myself, I must say it feels good to know that my little bits of biodata and DNA have joined with that of half a million others to help make this ambitious project a success and I look forward to following and reporting its progress in years to come.

Source: Biobank, BBC.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

Half A Million Britons Volunteer For World's Most Detailed Health Study

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