UK Biobank, a visionary medical project aimed at improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and many other serious conditions, gets underway in Manchester today.

The multimillion-pound project will gather, store and protect medical data and material on half a million volunteers aged 40 to 69 across Britain and track their health over the course of the next 30 years or more.

In the first phase of a four-year recruitment process, about 10 000 letters asking people to take part in UK Biobank will arrive on residents' door mats this week.

Tens of thousands more invitations will be sent throughout the course of the year to people across Manchester, asking them to join the project.

Following consent, each participant will be asked to donate a blood and urine sample, have some standard measurements taken, such as blood pressure, and complete a confidential lifestyle questionnaire.

Over the next 20 to 30 years UK Biobank will allow doctors and medical researchers to use these resources to study the progression of major illnesses, allowing them to study in depth how the complex interplay of genes, lifestyle and environment affect the risk of developing a specific disease.

Around 15 million blood and urine samples will eventually be stored for decades in specially designed laboratories near Manchester.

Find out more about the project by visiting UK Biobank's website.

The Wellcome Trust is a major funder of UK Biobank, contributing £28 million of the £62 million total cost.

See also

• UK Biobank