BBC correspondent Fergus Walsh had his eyes scanned as part of the UK Biobank study. The world’s largest human body scanning project begins in the United Kingdom. The brains and bodies of 60,000 volunteers who have already undergone the procedure will be scanned again in the search for new ways to treat and prevent disease. Studying how the body ages can help predict the likelihood of developing dementia or certain types of cancer. The study has already led to the development of a genetic test for individuals born with an increased risk of ischemic heart disease.
“I was in the first group of volunteers to be scanned nine years ago, and I am participating in the second study.” This time, everything from the brain to the heart, eyes and bone density will be scanned. Like me, all the volunteers are participants in the UK Biobank project, and researchers in over 90 countries are using this database for health research. The availability of two sets of high-resolution MRI images and bone density data from thousands of people, taken a few years apart, can open up huge new opportunities for detecting and preventing diseases such as dementia, cancer and heart disease. Project leader Professor Naomi Allen told the BBC: “Researchers will be able to observe changes in organs as they age, which will help to develop biomarkers for disease, potentially many years before symptoms appear and a clinical diagnosis is made.”
The study may help predict factors that increase the likelihood of developing dementia. In addition, a number of other potential outcomes will be obtained during the trial. It can determine who responds better to treatment and why some people are more resilient to certain diseases, Professor Paul Matthews, director of the UK Dementia Research Centre at Imperial College London and chair of the visualization working group for the UK Biobank, told me.
Launched in 2006, the UK Biobank project was designed to be the most comprehensive study of the nation’s health. Half a million adults, including me, participated. We underwent a medical exam, answered questions about our health and lifestyle, and provided genetic samples that will be stored and studied for decades. All participants had their genome – their entire DNA – sequenced.
In 2014, the visualization part of the project began, which involves detailed scanning of the brain and the rest of the body. All data collected is anonymous, and participants are usually not informed of the details and results that relate to them personally. So why do they participate? As 67-year-old Marian Kiling put it: “There’s a dose of altruism in it, and it’s like giving blood – you do it for your loved ones.” Another volunteer, Mary Wilson, 81, expressed a similar thought: “This will help future generations and the health care system. The longer you can stay healthy, the better.
Detailed images of the volunteers’ organs are stored for further analysis. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next.
Episodes The end of the story: Podcast Advertising There are other biomedical databases, but they are either not as comprehensive as UK Biobank or have not been around as long. The project is already being used in modern medicine. Published over 7000 peer-reviewed articles, nearly a third of them in the last year alone, demonstrating its increasing scientific value over time. In 2018, researchers developed a genetic test to identify individuals born at increased risk of ischemic heart disease by analyzing genomic data from the UK Biobank. “When we combine all your genetic variations across the genome, each variation has a small effect, but collectively some individuals have a significant genetic risk of developing cardiovascular disease or various types of cancer, which we simply did not know before,” says Professor Allen.
Professor Paul Elliott, an epidemiologist at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, believes that a huge database of volunteer scans will allow a better understanding of how human genes and the environment influence the risk of developing disease. “The project relies on the National Health Service’s ability to monitor patients’ health through their medical records, with their consent. This is a vivid example of the benefits of government-funded research,” he said. According to him, the UK Biobank has become an international “gold standard” for this type of research. The second part of the project is funded by the Medical Research Council and the British NGOs Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Dementias Platform UK.