UK Biobank
Long-term biobank study of 500
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| October 2024 | The Guardian published a story about the far-right 'Human Diversity Foundation' obtaining UK Biobank data for potential race studies, raising governance and data access concerns. |
| 2023 | Two studies using UK Biobank participant data found that social isolation correlates with a higher risk of dementia, highlighting the importance of social connections for cognitive health. |
| 2023 | A review was published examining UK Biobank participants, revealing that individuals with a stronger sense of meaning and purpose in life demonstrated a decreased risk of developing dementia. |
| 2023 | UK Biobank reached a milestone of 30,000 registered researchers and over 9,000 peer-reviewed articles published based on its dataset. |
| 2023 | The Research Analysis Platform reached over 5,000 users and was hosted by Amazon Web Services, which committed $1.5 million in research credits for early career and researchers from low-income countries. |
| 2023 | Comprehensive release of whole genome sequencing data for all 500,000 participants, the largest such release for medical research, supported by UKRI, Wellcome, and industry partners. |
| 2023 | Over 3,000 peer-reviewed publications were produced using UK Biobank data, highlighting the extensive scientific impact of the research database. |
| November 2023 | The Observer reported on UK Biobank's data sharing with insurance companies, prompting a response from UK Biobank clarifying their data sharing policies. |
| October 2023 | Publication of circulating protein measurements for approximately 53,000 participants through the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project. |
| October 2023 | Funders including Eric Schmidt and Ken Griffin announced further funding for UK Biobank for the next five years. |
| May 2023 | UKRI announced that UK Biobank would receive £127.6m to move to a purpose-built facility at Bruntwood SciTech's Manchester Science Park. |
| 2022 | A comprehensive review of UK Biobank data revealed that road traffic noise exposure significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, stroke, and overall mortality rates. |
| 2021 | UK Biobank launched its cloud-based Research Analysis Platform (UKB-RAP), providing infrastructure for storing and analyzing large datasets across different technological capabilities. |
| 2020 | 20,000 volunteers agreed to collect and send monthly blood samples for SARS-CoV-2 antibody analysis, including existing participants and their children and grandchildren. |
| January 2020 | UK Biobank began approving access to data for insurance sector companies, contrary to earlier public statements about data access. |
| January 2020 | Lord Kakkar succeeded Sir Michael Rawlins as the chair of the UK Biobank Board, taking over leadership of the organization's governance. |
| 2019 | Researchers published a controversial study on the genetics of same-sex behaviour using data from 23andMe and UK Biobank, which prompted concerns from researchers and bioethicists about the study's nature and potential commercial exploitation. |
| 2017 | Researchers gained access to the database including comprehensive genetic information. By this time, participants had approximately 1.3 million hospitalizations and 40,000 cancer incidents. |
| 2016 | A study on genetic contributions to social deprivation and household income was published using UK Biobank data, raising questions about the scope of research. |
| 2015 | Initial genomic data from 150,000 participants was released, involving an assay of 820,967 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). |
| 2014 | A new assessment centre opened to collect advanced imaging data, including MRI scans of brain, heart, and abdomen. |
| 2012 | Milestone reached where 30,000 researchers from over 90 countries registered to use UK Biobank data for scientific research. |
| March 2012 | UK Biobank dataset was first opened to researchers, allowing scientists from the UK and internationally (public, private, academic, and charity sectors) to access the resource for health-related research, subject to approval. |
| August 2010 | Participant enrolment was declared complete, with only 22 centres having been opened when the recruitment target was reached. |
| July 2010 | Recruitment passed the 500,000 target participant mark. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article UK Biobank, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.