Research being used to develop new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases like dementia, Parkinson’s, diabetes and cancer will benefit from a £16m cloud computing boost to upgrade how UK Biobank uses and stores its growing wealth of health data.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will provide around £8m worth of cloud computing storage access to support UK Biobank, the world’s leading biomedical database.
This contribution provides access to data storage as well as other AWS services, such as AI and machine learning.
This will be matched by a further £8m in government investment and forms part of the public, private and philanthropic group set up to keep the world-leading facility at the forefront of medical research.
The biomedical database supports groundbreaking research in healthcare
UK Biobank, located in the North West of England, is supporting groundbreaking advancements in healthcare, such as the development of genetic tests to detect people who have an increased risk of coronary heart disease, only made possible via analysis of UK Biobank’s biomedical database.
Researchers worldwide can apply for access to an unparalleled volume of de-identified and secure data, which they are using to enable medical breakthroughs, from detecting cardiac disease earlier to developing tests for Alzheimer’s.
UK Biobank’s database is regularly augmented with new data, such as a recent addition of the largest-ever set of whole genome sequencing data, the largest proteomic dataset, and the ongoing results of the world’s largest imaging study of whole-body scanning.
Cloud computing investments will enable researchers to open up new ways to investigate disease mechanisms, particularly for common diseases of older and middle-aged, from depression and anxiety to coronary heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis.
Advancing innovation with cloud computing upgrades
In October last year, a public-philanthropic consortium was set up to ensure UK Biobank’s long-term future. Eric Schmidt and Ken Griffin donated initial funding, which the government matched to a total of £32m.
The new cloud computing upgrade means almost £50m has now been achieved for UK Biobank, putting fundraising efforts within touching distance of the ultimate funding goal set when that initial funding was announced.
“We are delighted that UK Biobank is extending its use of cloud computing to give approved researchers around the world access to the vital data that will support medical breakthroughs,” stated John Davies, Director of UK Public Sector at Amazon Web Services.
“In using AWS cloud data, UK Biobank is able to store this vast amount of health data securely, and scale up the data platform quickly and easily, as more data is added in the future.”
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, added: “UK Biobank’s biomedical database plays a vital role in enabling new discoveries that improve public health, and the work done there shows what can be achieved when academia, the public and private sectors come together and use their strengths to address some of our biggest healthcare challenges.
“We have an opportunity to be a global leader in health innovation and life sciences – growing our regional and national economy while leading work that transforms the health of the population.”
