LAUSR

Abstract Chronic diseases, such as stroke, heart disease, cancer and mental disorder, are the leading causes of disability and death worldwide. Despite recent advances, our ability to prevent and treat these conditions is still limited. Understanding what causes these diseases in diverse populations with different lifestyles, environments and genetic architectures can lead to improved disease prevention and risk prediction, and the development of personalised medicine. Unique opportunities to fulfill these goals are offered by prospective “biobank” studies, with detailed characterization of large numbers of apparently healthy individuals from the general population, using conventional and novel technologies, and with electronic monitoring of their health status over time. In the last decade, many large prospective biobank studies of global significance (e.g. US PMI cohort, UK Biobank) are being or have been assembled. China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) is one of the world’s largest studies of this kind, involving 512,000 adults recruited during 2004-08 from 10 diverse areas in China, with extensive data collected at baseline and periodic resurveys, on lifestyle, environmental, physiological (e.g. blood pressure, adiposity, lung function) and psychological factors (e.g. depression, sleeping disorder, personality trait, major adverse life events), and with long-term storage of biological samples (DNA, plasma, urine). To date, >0.5 million fatal and non-fatal disease events of >1000 different types (e.g. stroke, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, fracture, depression, suicide, cataract and rheumatoid arthritis) have been recorded among participants. These exposure and health outcome data are now being complemented by blood assays of genetic (e.g. 10 million variants, including 80K functional variants, using custom designed array for Chinese), metabolomic (e.g. ~250 metabolites), proteomic (e.g. ~100 inflammation biomarkers) and infective (~20 pathogens) biomarkers, with many novel findings starting to emerge, including phenome-wide analyses of the impact of modulating levels and/or activity of major potential or actual drug targets. The uniquely powerful and increasingly rich resources in CKB will enable scientists to make many important discoveries relevant to risk prediction, disease prevention and treatment of many common conditions, benefiting populations worldwide.