Yesterday, UK Biobank launched a £43 million "biggest ever" study that will use a variety of advanced imaging techniques to shed light on a range of diseases including dementia, arthritis, cancer, heart attacks and strokes.
The study, funded by the founding entities and the British heart Foundation, will create the single most vast collection of scans of internal organs — including heart, brain, bones, carotid arteries and abdominal fat from 100,000 current Biobank participants — and hopefully reveal new insights into the best ways to analyze and interpret scans.
"This very large number of participants involved in the multimodal imaging study is impressive enough," said Cathie Sudlow, profesor of neurology and clinical epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, and UK Biobank's chief scientist. "But what makes it truly transformational is the opportunity to combine the rich imaging data with the wealth of other information already available or being collected from participants, particularly their health and diseases during follow-up for many years to come."
The organization was set up in 2006 by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust to create a research resource of half a million people across the U.K. to improve health. Since its inception, UK Biobank has gathered vast quantities of data on its 500,00 patients, including lifestyle, weight, height, diet, physical activity, cognitive function and genetic data from blood samples.
"UK Biobank will be by far the largest brain imaging study ever conducted," said Stephen Smith, professor at the Oxford University Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain and leader of the brain imaging component of the study — and that's only one component.
In the following video, Sir Rory Collins, professor and principal investigator for the project, describes the benefits UK Biobank hopes to bring to the medical community, as well as what the research could mean for heart disease in particular.
Here is the complete list of imaging exams being performed:
MRI assessment of heart chamber diameter, the volume of blood flow, and how the heart changes as it pumps blood around the body, thickness of the heart wall and the size, shape and stiffness of the thoracic aorta, the vessel that delivers blood from the heart
MRI measures of brain structure and function, volumes of grey matter and the mapping of major brain connections
Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measures of bone density, osteoarthritic change at spine, hip, and knee, fractures in the spine, and fat distribution throughout the body
MRI measures of abdominal fat volume including in the liver and pancreas
Ultrasound assessment of two major arteries, the carotid arteries, that run either side of the neck to the brain. Recruitment will continue in the north west of England, and will roll out to the south (Reading) and the north (Newcastle) over the coming year.
An initial study of 8,000 participants has just been completed at a purpose-built scanning facility at UK Biobank's headquarters in Stockport, which is not being used for the main study.
