About Us: What is UK Biobank?

UK Biobank is a world-leading biomedical database to enable scientific discoveries that improve human health. Our goal is to inspire the imaginations of health researchers around the world to meet the challenge of greater understanding, prevention, and treatment of a range of serious illnesses. UK Biobank has Research Tissue Bank Approval until 2026 and through access to an unmatched amount of biological and medical data on half a million people living in the UK, we can enable your vision of improving human health. 

1. UK Biobank is a longitudinal study; it follows the health of 500,000 volunteer participants.
2. Participants were aged between 40-69 years when they joined UK Biobank between 2006-2010.
3. Each participant attended a baseline assessment at a centre in England (89%), Scotland (7%) and Wales (4%).
4. Participants provided their consent for long-term follow-up.
5. Participants answered lots of questions about their health & lifestyle.
6. Participants donated samples of blood, urine and saliva for long-term storage and analysis.
7. Physical measurements were also taken (e.g. height, weight, spirometry, blood pressure, heel bone density).
8. Many participants have undertaken MR brain & heart imaging, activity monitoring and online follow-up questionnaires.
9. We have genetic data on all 500,000 participants.

10. UK Biobank is not representative of the general population with evidence of a ‘healthy volunteer’ selection bias, details of which are published online.