There are now a number of population-based ‘Biobank’ research initiatives around the world, each learning from the other in this emerging and exciting area of scientific endeavour. More are planned around the world. Some ‘Biobanks’ involve thousands of people, others, like UK Biobank, hundreds of thousands. As a prospective (forward-looking) study, UK Biobank is one of the trailblazers in developing a resource that will measure participants at the start (baseline) and then follow them through their health records for years to come. This provides stronger data on which to build research projects, compared with asking people to remember events in the past.
As part of our commitment to global health and building a research resource that will help everyone, UK Biobank has sought the help of an International Review Body, made up of some of the world’s leading experts in epidemiology. This review body has overwhelmingly endorsed UK Biobank. An equally prestigious line-up of world class researchers will meet annually, as the International Scientific Advisory Board, to help guide the project. UK Biobank is also a member of The Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G), a non-for-profit international consortium to promote collaboration between researchers in the field of population genomics.