The UK Biobank is the largest and most comprehensive health database in the world.
The ongoing project follows 500,000 volunteers who were recruited between 2006 and 2010.
It includes:
🔴 Genetic Data: The entire genomes of all 500,000 participants have been sequenced
🔴 Biological Samples: Over 15 million samples of blood, urine, and saliva were collected.
🔴 Medical Records: The Biobank is linked to participants’ NHS records, tracking doctor visits and hospital visits
🔴 Physical Measurements: Height, Weight, Body fat, Waist/Hip Circumference, ECG, blood pressure
🔴 Lifestyle Information: Data about diet, sleep, mental health is collected through individual questionnaires.
The 500,000 volunteers agreed to have their health tracked for 30 years.
All data is free, open source, and “de-identified” meaning names are removed.
The UK Biobank is used by scientists to study genetic and lifestyle causes of diseases. More than 20,000 researchers from 90 different countries registered to use it.
(Some people are actually worried about that)
Using this data, scientists keep finding interesting things :
https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/research-stories/flu-and-covid-19-can-reignite-dormant-breast-cancer/
This is a super interesting project.
Thank you Britain 🇬🇧 🫡
I am quite torn on this one. Of course this can be a tremendous resource, but at the same time when volunteering genetic and medical data you are not just giving away your own, but also information about others, who didn’t get to make that decision.
How?
You also share the partial genetic information of your relatives
As I understand it, you only share half of your DNA with your parents and siblings, even less with more distant relatives, and it’s not easy to tell which bits of DNA come from where. Also the records are anonymised so it’s even harder to figure out which person you can infer information about.
And in the USA this could raise your insurance
