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The UK Biobank is a prospective cohort study with deep genetic, physical and health data collected on ~500,000 individuals across the United Kingdom from 2006-2010. This unprecedented open access database has enabled an order of magnitude larger studies on genetic and epidemiological associations for an extensive range of health related traits. The UK Biobank has generously made their datasets, and research results resulting from these, accessible to researchers as an open access resource to benefit public health.
This collection accompanies the publication of the first main papers from UK Biobank in Nature and associated commentaries. We also highlight a selection of research publications from Nature journals that showcase how these UK Biobank datasets have already been widely used in a broad range of studies in order to advance the understanding of the genetic basis of disease, genetic epidemiology and public health.
UK Biobank contains a wealth of data on genetics, health and more from 500,000 participants. A detailed overview of the biobank and an analysis of its brain-imaging data show the value of this resource.
Two studies in Nature describe the full data set of the UK Biobank resource, which contains genome-wide genetic data, clinical measurements and health records for ~500,000 individuals, and reveal insights into the brain’s genetic architecture.