On 11 September, the UK Biobank unveiled their £200M Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) project, which will sequence the genomes of all 500,000 UK Biobank participants. This project is jointly funded by UK Research & Innovation (£50M), the Wellcome Trust (£50M) and four large pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson), which together are providing £100M in funding.
The UK Biobank was established in 2006 and collects longitudinal health data and biological samples from 500,000 participants aged between 40-69 years. The electronic health records of participants are directly linked to the UK Biobank database, providing information on disease events, drug prescriptions and deaths. UK Biobank also collects imaging data and is aiming to obtain MRI scans from 100,000 participants by 2020. From the outset, UK Biobank has shared its anonymised data withbona fidehealth researchers. To date, 802 papers using UK Biobank data have been published in peer-reviewed journals, identifying new risk factors for disease and paving the way for improved, targeted therapies.
WGS involves sequencing the entire genome, which in humans consists of over 3 billion base pairs of DNA. After a brief exclusive access period for the pharmaceutical company funders, WGS data will be released to researchers in two tranches: 125,000 sequences in March 2021, and the remaining sequences at the end of 2022. The addition of WGS data to UK Biobank will make it the most comprehensive resource of its kind in the world. By linking this genetic information with clinical data from participants, UK Biobank hopes to provide insights into why certain people develop life-changing diseases, and why others do not.
https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/WGS-FAQ-final-AT.pdf
