UK Biobank: Provision of a managed informatics platform for accessing the UK Biobank resource and supporting research analyses

UK Biobank is an international resource with 500,000 richly phenotyped participants offering non-preferential access to bona fide researchers seeking to understand the determinants of disease. With investments being made by industry, government and charity, the resource is increasingly detailed and is already the most genetically characterised resource in the world. With anticipated inclusion of whole exome and whole genome sequence data, this will remain the case for many years to come. Together with imaging, cardiac monitoring, activity and metabolomics measures, the resource will comprise over 15 Petabytes of health-related data by 2025. These increasingly large and complex datasets mean it is no longer tenable for researchers to download data and requires new platform access methods to allow researchers to generate the scientific discoveries of the next decade. Funding is sought to implement an informatics platform to allow access and analysis of UK Biobank data in-situ in conformance with access policies and security controls. The platform will further democratise access, ensuring researchers around the world can participate on the same, non-preferential basis with appropriate support. Funding will cover implementation and management for a period of 5 years after which the platform will become financially self-sustaining through access charges.