The UK Biobank (UKB) recently launched the world’s most comprehensive proteomics study, providing the scientific community with a first-of-its-kind database that can be used to explore changes to an individual’s protein levels over mid-to-late life, with the potential to transform disease understanding, diagnostics and therapeutics. The UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource, containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million UK participants. The UKB Pharma Proteomics Project (UKB-PPP) is an unparalleled initiative that will measure levels of up to 5,400 proteins in each of 600,000 samples, including those taken from half a million UK Biobank participants and 100,000 second samples taken from these volunteers up to 15 years later. Bristol Myers Squibb is one of 14 biopharmaceutical companies in a consortium that sponsored this new study that will provide a unique resource for understanding illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia.
“The new protein profiling data will be a major enhancement to the already transformative UKB resource, providing a deeper look at the biological processes that connect genetic and environmental factors to human health and disease,” said Joe Maranville, PhD, executive director of Immunology, Cardiovascular and Genetics, Informatics and Predictive Sciences.
This current project aims to increase the existing UKB dataset by ten-fold, further enabling research into the association between genetic variation and circulating protein levels. An expanded dataset of protein expression and genetic data will help to further establish known associations between genetics and human disease and support innovative drug development.
“We have a strong focus on using causal human biology to identify and prioritize drug targets,” explained Maranville. “The combination of genetic and proteomic data at this scale will expand our ability to identify proteins that play a causal role in diseases across multiple therapeutic areas.”
Findings from a 2023 UKB-PPP pilot project were published in the journal Nature and provided insight into human health and disease, revealing novel biological insights. Initial phase data from the UKB-PPP project have been widely used and cited by the scientific community, with more than 130,000 accesses. Similarly, through the UK Biobank-Exome Sequencing Consortium (UKB-ESC), DNA sequencing data have been linked to existing genetic and lifestyle data within the database, enabling researchers to produce new health insights to aid the discovery of novel treatments. The UKB-ESC previously published an analysis of the initial data and its potential value in drug development in Nature Genetics, also receiving a research highlight in Nature Reviews Genetics.
Tracking protein changes over time may help identify early disease markers and improve understanding of disease mechanisms at a molecular level in different patient populations. Such information can help identify which patients are most likely to benefit from certain treatments. Further, the breadth of data across participants from different ancestral, demographic and phenotypic backgrounds underscores the importance of involving diverse groups in all facets of clinical research to inform the future of drug discovery and development.
“Our research teams will use insights from these data to advance our portfolio in multiple ways,” said Maranville. “This will include novel target identification and biomarker discovery, as well as many other applications that will likely arise from our deeper understanding of causal human biology. Ultimately, we anticipate that this will help us successfully bring forward innovative medicines to help patients overcome serious diseases.”