A dreary industrial estate near Manchester (UK) hosts the largest biobank in the world, increased the quality and quantity of information recorded although, quantitatively, China is challenging. The UK Biobank contains a wide range of biological data on half a million people and is now ready for use by researchers in the international scientific community. At its heart is freezing with ten million samples of blood, urine and saliva. A robot car due to a computer by removing up to 8,500 samples per hour.
During the past three years the bank has recruited half a million people in Britain aged between 40 and 69 years of age who have had extractions, responded to questionnaires and physical tests. Tim Peakman, executive director of UK Biobank , explains why the age "is the section in which most frequently manifest disease and thus can make better statistical studies of complex diseases. If we compare 5000 cases of people with a condition with another 5,000 without the disease, gives us an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat changes have. " For comparison, the larger the database, the better.
The biobank will be used by any researcher who meet the criteria for being on a work of "public benefit." This concept is the only condition, regardless of whether they are commercial companies or public institutions or their studies are of a preventive or curative.
The project started in 2000 with a gathering of academics and is convinced that the technology available and that its use would be relevant for understanding diseases unresolved. In 2004 it was piloted in Manchester and the result was proposed UK Biobank to potential funders. Wellcome Trust, the eponymous pharmaceutical, finance the project along with other institutional sponsors. According Peakman account to get the half a million volunteers sent letters to eight million users of Social Security.
"The Biobank is not representative of the global population or that of Europe, has no proportion of races, ages, genders or ethnic minorities, the database is generalizing, ie states which are of particular, example, people who smoke 20 cigarettes per day regardless of gender or race, "said Peakman, also involved in the creation of other banks in Canada or Sweden.
Health Tracking
In white and aseptic units Biobank some machines are detected by brand. At 14 people working in Manchester, four in Oxford and London will join others to complete a workforce of between 20 and 25. The project has cost 78 million euros to start and now costs 2.4 million euros per year. "We use technology to provide the information you request and need to connect with physicians to monitor the health of registered volunteers," explains the director.
Although researchers may require any type of data has designed and two groups of applications, a cross-sectional in which they ask, for example, the level of insulin cholesterol diet or having a certain body mass index or into the obese category. Another type of request will control studies of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, psychiatric disorders and heart disease, degenerative or genetic. A day within 30 years, which will end the samples and the life of the biobank. To Peakman "that would mean that it has generated results that will form the basis of data from other bases."
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