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Medical discoveries often result from years of hard work, and Rory Collins, the leader of the UK Biobank project, has been at the forefront of this effort for over a decade. The project collects health data from half a million people over time, including questionnaires, blood samples, and imaging of various body parts. This sets UK Biobank apart from other research efforts as the data is available to any researcher, making it an invaluable resource for scientific innovation.
Since its inception in 2006, the data from UK Biobank has been used in over 3,000 scientific papers and has led to groundbreaking concepts such as the polygenic risk score. With over 2,800 projects still ongoing, the full impact of this data will continue to unfold in the coming years. The project also aims to collect more data as participants age, with the hope of shedding light on late-life diseases such as dementia. To make the data more diverse, UK Biobank has supported international data-gathering projects in countries like Mexico, China, and the U.S., with plans to expand to more countries in the future.
Despite facing challenges ahead, Collins remains driven by the impact that UK Biobank is having on medical research. He considers himself fortunate to have played a part in such a groundbreaking project that has led to numerous scientific publications without him even having to write a single word.
