UK Biobank releases half a million whole-genome sequences for biomedical research

One of the world’s largest databases of whole genomes has just become a lot larger. The British health study known as the UK Biobank today made the full genetic sequences of nearly 500,000 people available to scientists for analysis, more than doubling the size of an earlier data set. Combined with long-term health data on participants, this “treasure trove” has the potential to transform biomedical science, organizers say. Geneticists are excited by the news. Such a large set of sequences provides a uniquely rich resource for studying the biological underpinnings of human health and disease, says Eleftheria Zeggini, director of the Institute of Translational Genomics at Helmholtz Munich. “In the field of human genomics, sample size is queen.” Since its founding in 2006, the UK Biobank has collected biological samples, whole-body scans, and data on the health and lifestyle of half a million middle-age and elderly volunteers. It has also, with participants’ consent, tracked those people’s incidence of cancer, dementia, and other conditions through records maintained by the country’s National Health Service. From 2012 onward, the platform has periodically released batches of these anonymized health data along with genetic information on participants, including scans for DNA markers and exome sequences (which comprise the 2% or so of human DNA that encodes proteins). Labs around the world can apply for access to these data sets. According to the...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research