UK Biobank is the world’s most comprehensive dataset of biological, health and lifestyle information.
After personal identifying information is removed from our data on 500,000 participants, scientists from across the world can apply to use it for research that is in the public interest.
What makes us special
UK Biobank is the world’s most detailed study for tracking the long-term health of people as they age.
The combination of these four aspects sets our dataset apart from other similar initiatives.
Large
500,000 people agreed to make all their health-related data available for research. They were between 40 and 69 years of age when they joined the study between 2006-2010.
Deep
We have extensive information on the lifestyle, environmental, and biological factors that are relevant to the development of different diseases.
Long
It’s been many years since our participants joined the study, so enough time has passed to see which people have remained healthy, and which have developed particular diseases, so that we can find out why.
Accessible
The data are readily available for health-related research by academic, charity and commercial researchers worldwide.
Where the data come from
Our participants
Since 2006, we have collected an unprecedented amount of biological and medical data on half a million people, aged between 40 and 69 years old and living in the UK when they joined.
Studies like ours need to be this large to give the best chance of understanding the causes of disease and how they progress. Only a small proportion of the participants will go on to develop a particular disease and that group needs to be large enough to study how genes, environments and life experiences affect the disease.
With their consent, our participants continue to provide detailed information about their lifestyle via online questionnaires, as well as data from their health records and related information, to provide a deeper understanding of how diseases develop.
Enhancements
Some of our participants have also:
- returned for body scans with medical imaging equipment
- provided additional blood, urine and saliva samples
- worn physical activity monitors
- worn heart health monitors
- completed online questionnaires
In collaboration with our funders and a range of technology and pharmaceutical companies, we have also transformed our participants’ biological samples into data including:
- whole genome sequences for all our participants
- measures of levels of proteins, hormones and metabolites in our participants’ blood
As technology develops, we’ll be able to unlock even more data from the biological samples that we store.
Our funding
We are supported by:
Our impact
Since we opened for research in 2012, more than 18,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published using UK Biobank data.
Explore the publications directly linked to UK Biobank approved projects in our publications section. And explore stories about some of the discoveries that UK Biobank researchers have made in our research stories.
Key documents
Read documents relating to the establishment of UK Biobank.
Explore more from UK Biobank
Learn more about how UK Biobank works including information on who can use UK Biobank data, ethics and regulations, and how we protect our data.
UK Biobank has achieved many world firsts, and we are still far from reaching our full potential. Learn more about our plans for the future.
Learn more about how we work with our partners, and our expectations of them when providing goods and services.
UK Biobank was established in the early 2000s to enable discoveries that improve human health. Learn more about our history.
The value of sharing data has never more clearly been shown than in UK Biobank. Things are possible now that were never possible before, and that’s what makes it such an exciting resource.
Ben Neale, Program Co-Director, Broad Institute, USA