Joint press release issued by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council and the Department of Health

UK Biobank enters new phase

The funders of the UK Biobank, Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust (WT) and Department of Health (DoH), are pleased to announce that the University of Manchester has won the opportunity to host the Co-ordinating Centre for the UK Biobank project.

The new Manchester headquarters of the study of genes, environment and health, will have overall responsibility for delivering the project including data management and quality assurance, computing and financial management. It will also be responsible for co-ordinating the activities of six scientific Collaborating Centres who will contribute to the design of the project and be responsible for participant recruitment and initial data and sample collection.

The six collaborating centres each consist of a network of academic and research institutions and they are Scottish Consortium, Fosse Way Consortium, North West & Wessex Consortium, Welsh Consortium, Central England Consortium and London Consortium. A total of 23 UK universities will be involved directly in these consortia.

John Newton, Chief Executive Officer of UK Biobank, says: "This announcement heralds the next phase of UK Biobank. Setting up the Co-ordinating Centre in Manchester and developing capacity in the regional Collaborating Centres will drive the project forward in an exciting way.

"We have also established a Science Committee, chaired by Professor John Bell, which will advise UK Biobank on strategic direction and its overall approach to developing the scientific content of the project."

The Co-ordinating Centre will be set up as a charitable company limited by guarantee, jointly owned by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust, which will contract to rent or lease its own accommodation.

For more information contact

Johnny Steyn in the MRC Press Office
Tel: 020 7637 6011
E-mail: johannes.steyn@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

Shaun Griffin in the Wellcome Trust Press Office
Tel: 020 7611 8612
Mobile: 07710 307059
E-mail: s.griffin@wellcome.ac.uk

Alison Pitts-Bland in the Department of Health Media Centre
Tel: 020 7210 5230
E-mail: alison.pitts-bland@doh.gov.uk

Notes to Editors:

As a concluding part of the selection process, the final contract negotiations with each of the consortia should be completed by the summer. Further information will be available on the UK Biobank website.

The following academic and research institutions make up the consortia for each of the Collaborating Centres:

1. North West Wessex Consortium
Manchester - Keele Universities' Medical School
University of Southampton Medical School Southampton (MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit)

2. Scottish Consortium
University of Glasgow
University of Edinburgh
University of Aberdeen
University of Dundee
(all Academic Departments of Primary Care)

3. Welsh Consortium
Centre for Health Sciences Research
University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff
Swansea Clinical School, University of Wales, Swansea
University of Wales, Bangor

4. London Consortium
Imperial College London
University College London
Kings College London
Queen Mary University of London

5. Fosse Way Consortium
University of Leicester
University of Birmingham
University of Bristol
Warwick Medical School
University of Nottingham
Peninsula Medical School
University of Sheffield

6. Central England Consortium
University of Oxford

• The work of the Science Committee, will fall into two broad categories which are the (1) Use and Strategic Direction of the Biobank Resource and (2) Scientific Management. Membership of this committee is being finalized and will be published on the UK Biobank website.

• The Terms of Reference and Membership of the Science committee is being finalized and will be published on the UK Biobank website.

• Professor John Bell, who has been appointed as chairman of the Science Committee, is the Regius Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Medical Sciences, University of Oxford. He obtained his first degree in Physiological Sciences at the University of Oxford prior to qualifying MB BCh in 1979. He was Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford prior to his appointment to the Regius Chair in 2002. Professor Bell is an acknowledged world leading figure in the genetics of complex diseases and has won many international prizes, most recently the EU Descartes Prize in 2002.

• A series of consultations will feed into the development of the ethics and governance framework for the UK Biobank project, which is being developed by the Interim Advisory Group (IAG). More information on the IAG, including a brief report of their first meeting, is available on the UK Biobank website.

• Ethics and Governance consultations are planned for May.

1. A workshop with a range of people who were consulted last year. These will include representatives from the Co-ordinating Centre and Collaborating centres as well as health care professionals. In addition there will be in depth interviews with parliamentary representatives.

2. A workshop with people, including health professionals and members of the public who have not taken part in previous consultations.

3. Reconvened focus groups with 65 members of the public panel made up of people who took part in previous public consultations.

• The UK Biobank is a major UK-based resource that will be used by the world's top scientists to explore the roles of nature and nurture in health and disease. The project will involve up to 500 000 volunteers, aged 45-69, who will complete lifestyle questionnaires and provide a blood sample for DNA and other analysis. This information, together with their medical histories, will be combined to create an anonymized national database - the UK Biobank. This will serve as a resource for scientists to investigate and determine the factors that cause the common disorders of later life, such as heart disease, cancer, Parkinson's disease, and type 2 diabetes. National and international experts in the field have rigorously and independently reviewed the science of the project, which has the support of a number of leading research charities. It is being funded jointly by the biomedical research charity the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Department of Health.

• The Wellcome Trust is an independent, research funding charity, established under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936. The Trust's mission is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. Website: www.wellcome.ac.uk

• The Medical Research Council (MRC) is a national organization funded by the UK tax-payer. Its business is medical research aimed at improving human health; everyone stands to benefit from the outputs. The research it supports and the scientists it trains meet the needs of the health services, the pharmaceutical and other health-related industries and the academic world. The MRC has funded work which has led to some of the most significant discoveries and achievements in medicine in the UK. About half of the MRC's expenditure of over £412 million is invested in its 50 Institutes, Units and Centres, where it employs its own research staff. The remaining half goes in the form of grant support and training awards to individuals and teams in universities and medical schools. Website at: www.mrc.ac.uk.

Fifty years after the momentous discovery of the structure of DNA, which was the culmination of research by Medical Research Council scientists, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin in London, and James Watson and Francis Crick in Cambridge, the world celebrates one of the most significant landmarks of 20th century science. For more information about events and news please visit the www.mrc.ac.uk or www.dna50.org.uk.