8 July 2011
Funding helps HIC to continue study
The University of Dundee’s Health Informatics Centre (HIC) has received £327,000 funding to facilitate the analysis of data from a groundbreaking, UK-wide research project.
The funding comes from UK Biobank (UKB), a major medical research initiative aiming to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses - including cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, arthritis and forms of dementia.
In order to carry out the required research, a pool of 500,000 volunteers from across the UK was recruited. The long-term follow-up of volunteers using routine healthcare data is a priority of the initiative, and Professor Frank Sullivan of HIC leads a team who help do this by establishing linkages with GP records and other databases to enable UKB to work more effectively.
With up-to-date information about volunteers at their fingertips, UKB is able to analyse the long-term outcomes for patients who fall under certain categories, or identify those suitable for an upcoming trial.
Following this successful pilot, the UKB have provided HIC with an additional £327,000 to continue the project for a further three years.
'Having half-a-million volunteers means you have access to a huge variety of individuals suitable for different studies and where we come in is by providing the expertise to link with databases holding information about these patients,' explained Professor Sullivan.
'We have proved that these linkages work, and the additional funding will allow us to follow up with these patients and keep information current for the UKB. If you can access data from all registers as close to real time as possible then it helps you carry out your research more effectively.
'For example, if you are doing a study on people with Parkinson's and need 200 sufferers to take part in a study then access to healthcare records from GP records etc means you are able to access the required number quickly. As these people have already volunteered, it is a case of scanning current records to identify those who are suitable and who have already given their permission.
'UK Biobank is an ambitious, world-leading project thinking about genes and environment and how this effects their health. It includes what medications people are taking and any health problems they experience. This funding allows us to continue our work with them and assist them in their work.'
Having recruited 500,000 people aged 40-69 from across the UK to take part in the project, UKB has built what it describes as 'a national treasure trove of health information” for scientists to use. The resource is among the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, and the organisation believes it will transform health research in years to come.
UK Biobank has the support of leading scientists from the UK and around the world. It is funded by the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest independent medical research charity, the Medical Research Council, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, British Heart Foundation and the Northwest Regional Development Agency.
HIC is a partnership between the University of Dundee, NHS Tayside, NHS Fife and NHS National Services Scotland (ISD). The partners share a vision of a resource that can benefit all of the people of Scotland by improving the quality of health information, building the systems that can use it to solve complex problems, and effectively communicate the information to the people who need it.
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