UK launches the world's largest in-vivo organ medical imaging research program

Release date: 2016-04-19

Today's point of view

The British Medical Research Council (MRC) announced on the 14th that the British Biobank will launch one of the world's largest medical imaging research programs to date. The program will scan 100,000 people to create the largest "collection" of scan information for internal organs. This will change scientists' research methods for many diseases including Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Provide a new perspective for research

The program is co-funded by MRC, Wellcome Fund and the British Heart Foundation for a total cost of £43 million. The research will involve images of the brain, heart, bones and carotid arteries of the 100,000 participants of the British Biobank.

In the 10 years since the establishment of the British Biobank, it has collected biological information of 500,000 people in the UK. These people donated their blood, urine, and saliva samples, providing many details about their height, weight, diet, lifestyle, and environment, and allowing Biology Bank to keep track of their family doctor records and medical records for life.

The vast amount of data generated by the new program will be open to all scientists. The new data will provide a new perspective for exploring the best ways to prevent and treat diseases such as arthritis, coronary heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and osteoporosis in a variety of ways, and explore how factors such as diet and lifestyle affect The beginning of the disease, decoding the link between various organ diseases and brain diseases.

Get the full picture of human body information

Using the image data obtained in this study will help to put the results of existing small-scale imaging research into the background for analysis. Additional genetic data, analysis of blood samples, and collected lifestyle data for people will further strengthen this resource. These are a valuable resource for researchers in the UK and other countries, giving them the opportunity to get a full picture of the body's information.

For example, the study will increase researchers' understanding of dementia, stroke, and other neurological disorders before they are diagnosed, which will lead to the development of new treatments or preventive measures. Researchers will be better able to discover how factors such as genes, environment and lifestyle affect the brain.

For another example, fractures in the UK are a very important public health problem, causing more than £3 billion in economic losses each year. The study will help prevent fractures caused by osteoporosis, which can be used to study bone mass, the determinants of osteoporosis, and certain common chronic non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes, atherosclerosis). The relationship between hypertension, sarcopenia, etc.).

Imaging research can also gain insight into the heart on an unprecedented scale, making it possible for researchers to study heart health issues in more detail. This will not only help prevent and treat heart disease in the future, but it will also make existing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology faster and more efficient.

Magnetic resonance imaging scans also provide critical information about body fat, muscle mass and distribution, and combining these data with people's lifestyle, genetics, blood indicators, etc., will greatly enhance the UK Biobank's The supporting role of disease research. Increasing evidence suggests that the distribution of fat in the body (and not the amount of fat) is an important factor in determining the risk of disease in the future.

Or will trigger the biobanking revolution

At present, preliminary research work on the project has begun. Funded by MRC, the City of Stockport, where the UK's biobank is headquartered, has built a scanning facility to conduct research on 8,000 participants. Volunteers who are scanned will not receive any feedback related to their health status unless they are detected as potentially serious illness during the imaging scan.

Kathy Sudlow, chief scientist at the British Biobank and professor of neurology and clinical epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, pointed out that the truly transformative nature of multimodal imaging research lies in the opportunities it will bring: rich image data and A wealth of other available information combined with the use of information, especially health and disease data obtained by tracking these people over the years.
George Lifeman, the UK's life sciences minister, said: "The amazing advances in imaging and information science are opening up new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent many diseases such as heart disease and cancer."

Paul Matthews, a professor of brain science at Imperial College of Science and Technology, believes that the new initiative of the British Biobank is showing the great value of a large collection of different kinds of data, which is a powerful annotation of the value of data sharing. This may "fundamentally change the development trend of the next 10 years, when we may not need additional research such as the British Biobank, because it will be embedded in the conventional health care system."

Source: China Science and Technology Network - Technology Daily

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