Completed Lungs & Breathing Digestion, Kidneys & Other Organs

China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) prospective study of 0.5 million adults

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Oxford
Funding £1.7M
Period Sept 2016 — Sept 2018

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

512,000 adults in China have been tracked for over a decade, with their blood samples, health records, and genetic data forming one of the world’s largest biomedical databases. This matters because most large-scale health studies have focused on Western populations, leaving major gaps in understanding how diseases develop in people with different genetic backgrounds, lifestyles, and environmental exposures. The China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) fills that gap by linking detailed lifestyle questionnaires, physical measurements, and stored blood samples to more than 25,000 deaths and 1.5 million disease events recorded through China’s health insurance and disease registries. Genome-wide data are now being generated for 100,000 participants, alongside blood biochemistry and multi-omics data for nested case-control studies of specific diseases. If this research succeeds, it will improve disease risk prediction, reveal new biological pathways for common conditions such as stroke, heart disease, and cancer, and help develop therapies that work across diverse populations. The resource is already shared with the wider scientific community, and continued funding will maintain follow-up, validate diagnoses, and enhance data access. The impact will be felt not just in China but worldwide, as researchers use CKB to test whether findings from Western studies hold true in a very different population—and to discover new risk factors that might otherwise remain hidden.

View original technical description
CKB is a blood-based prospective study of 512,000 adults, recruited during 2004-8 from 10 diverse regions of China, with extensive data collected at baseline and subsequent resurveys using questionnaires, physical measurements, and stored biological samples. By 1.1.2014, 25,000 deaths and ~1.5M coded disease events had been recorded among participants, through linkages with death and disease registries and national health insurance systems. Genome-wide data are being generated (first phase: ~100,000 participants by Q3/2016), along with blood biochemistry and multi-omics data for nested case-control studies of specific diseases. We are seeking renewal of two-year funding to support core activities to maintain, enhance and share the resource through: (i) continued follow-up of cause-specific morbidity and mortality and hospital records through electronic linkage to health insurance systems; (ii) validation, clinical adjudication and detailed sub-phenotyping for selected diseases (e.g. stroke, IHD, cancer); (iii) maintenance and management of extensive and uniquely large and complex datasets; (iv) enhancement of collaboration and data sharing with the wider scientific community; and (v) maintenance and development of administrative and technological systems underpinning the infrastructure, sample storage and resurvey. The CKB resource will improve our understanding of disease aetiology, risk prediction and development of new therapies, and should benefit populations worldwide.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Zhengming Chen (EPMC Awardee)

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Original classification

Biomedical Resources Grant

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