Southampton supports world's largest human imaging study

Image credit: UK Biobank/Dave Guttridge

Bone health expertise in Southampton has underpinned one of the biggest health studies in the world.

Professor Nicholas Harvey designed and oversees the bone and body composition scanning protocol for the UK Biobank imaging study.

The study recently marked a record-breaking milestone. It collected the brain, body and bone scans of its 100,000th volunteer.

Professor Harvey presented the latest imaging research in a celebration event at the Royal Society in London.

One billion scans

The UK Biobank imaging project is transforming research into diseases like dementia, heart disease, arthritis and diabetes.

It is the world’s largest ever imaging study. It is collecting scans of brains, hearts, abdomens and bones in volunteers.

To date, there have been more than one billion scans from 100,000 volunteers. This is allowing scientists to see how organs change before a disease takes hold.

Combined with other volunteer data, it can also help research into how and why people get stick as they age and what to do about it.

The study confirms the UK’s position at the very forefront of life sciences research internationally.

Southampton expertise

Professor Harvey is Director of the University of Southampton's MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre. He is a key part of the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre and an NIHR Senior Investigator.

His protocol design has captured detailed imaging for the project. This has spanned DXA bone density and body composition, MRI brain, heart and abdomen, and carotid ultrasound, in all 100,000 volunteers.

At last Wednesday’s celebration event, Professor Harvey presented new work in collaboration with Universities of Bristol and Manchester. This is developing novel image-based measures of the knee and hip in the prediction of osteoarthritis.

The presentation was followed by a private reception at the Houses of Parliament. This included an address from the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.

A ‘staggering achievement’

Prof Harvey said: “It is a huge privilege to oversee the DXA bone and body composition scanning for this unique and internationally leading study. It is a great pleasure to subsequently use the data in cutting edge analyses undertaken at our MRCLEC and NIHR Southampton BRC.

“Recruitment of 100,000 comprehensively-imaged volunteers is a staggering achievement. It reflects the amazing vision, hard work and perseverance of the UK Biobank leadership, team and expert advisors.”