Data sets
Researchers in the MRC IEU use a range of population cohort data, enabling investigation over a range of health and disease conditions over the life course.
Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children
| Description | Based at the University of Bristol, Children of the 90s, also known as Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), is a world-leading birth cohort study. Between April 1991 and December 1992 ALSPAC recruited more than 14,000 pregnant women from the Bristol and Avon area, and these women (some of whom had two pregnancies or multiple births during the recruitment period), the children arising from the pregnancy, and their partners have been followed up intensively over two decades. |
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| Website | http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/ |
| Principal investigator(s) | Professor Nic Timpson |
| Funding | UKRI MRC, Wellcome Trust, University of Bristol |
| Data available | Data are described here:- http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/our-data/ |
| Data access | Data can be requested by any bona fide researcher by submitting a project proposal. |
| Relationship to IEU | The ALSPAC study is widely used by MRC IEU researchers for research into childhood development and the epidemiology of common diseases. Some IEU programme leads are co-investigators in the study or members of the ALSPAC Board. A number of IEU researchers have also contributed to the generation and QC of data managed by the study. However, the governance of the study is managed separately to the IEU, and the IEU researchers are subject to the same application processes on as any external user, with no preference offered to members of the IEU. All requests for data access should be submitted via ALSPAC. |
Born in Bradford
| Description | The Born in Bradford study is tracking the health and wellbeing of over 13,500 children, and their parents born at Bradford Royal Infirmary between March 2007 and December 2010. The health of these children is being tracked from pregnancy through childhood and into adult life. Studying children from before birth is a powerful way of understanding the many influences that shape our lives. We have been able to include how our parents and our wider family, our genes, the way we choose to live, the local environment, the services we access come together to affect our health and well-being. The information collected from our Born in Bradford families is being used to find the causes of common childhood illnesses, conditions and to explore the mental and social development of this new generation. We now starting to follow-up all the Born in Bradford families to see how their lives have changed since pregnancy. We are doing this through BiB:Growing Up and the Primary School Years projects. |
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| Website | https://borninbradford.nhs.uk/ |
| Principal investigator(s) | Professor John Wright |
| Funding | UKRI MRC, NIHR, The Welcome Trust, UKRI ESRC (Complete list) |
| Data available | Data dictionary can be found here https://borninbradford.github.io/datadict/ |
| Data access | Data can be requested by submitting a project proposal/expression of interest. |
| Relationship to IEU | The Born in Bradford study is widely used by MRC IEU researchers for research into childhood development and the epidemiology of common diseases. Deborah Lawlor (IEU programme lead) is a co-investigator in the study. A number of IEU researchers have also contributed to the generation and QC of data managed by the study. However, the governance of the study is managed separately to the IEU, and the IEU researchers are subject to the same application processes on as any external user, with no preference offered to members of the IEU. All requests for data access should be submitted via Born in Bradford. |
Covid-19 Mapping and Mitigation in Schools
| Description | CoMMinS aims to give us an understanding of COVID-19 infection dynamics centred around school pupils and staff and onward transmission to family contacts. We are doing this now as reopening schools in September 2020 will bring new challenges and new opportunities to study the natural history of COVID-19 in young people. We want to know about the role of young people in mitigating against disease transmission. We also want to find out about the impact on mental wellbeing. CoMMinS will involve around 24 Bristol schools, but what we learn will be important to national decision-making for outbreak control. The programme is led by a team of researchers from the University of Bristol and co-produced in partnership with Bristol City Council, Public Health England and Bristol Schools. |
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| Website | https://commins.org.uk/ |
| Principal investigator(s) | Professor Caroline Relton |
| Data available | A data dictionary is in preparation for release. |
| Data access | Data can be requested by any bona fide researcher by submitting a project proposal. Further details will be provided soon. |
| Relationship to IEU | The CoMMiNS study was led by Caroline Relton and involved a number of IEU researchers who have analysed data as part of that project. |
Genetics of DNA Methylation Consortium mQTL database
| Description | GoDMC was established with the view of bringing together researchers with an interest in studying the genetic basis of DNA methylation variation, to consolidate as many resources and expertise as possible and thereby expedite this field of research. The resource comprises methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTL) for more than 400,000 DNA methylation sites in the genome estimated in more than 30,000 individuals. |
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| Website | http://www.godmc.org.uk/ |
| Principal investigator(s) | Prof. Caroline Relton, Dr. Jordana Bell, Prof. Christoph Bock, Prof. Bas Heijmans and Prof. Jonathan Mill |
| Funding | UKRI MRC and numerous other funders |
| Data available | Data are described here:- http://www.godmc.org.uk/ |
| Data access | Data is freely accessible. |
| Relationship to IEU | The GoDMC methylation QTL resource was developed by an international consortium of more than 50 research groups coordinated by the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit(IEU; Josine Min and Gibran Hemani). The data are used by researchers at the IEU and worldwide to gain insights into the role of DNA methylation in health and disease. |
IEU OpenGWAS
| Description | Developed at the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) at the University of Bristol, this resource is a manually curated collection of complete GWAS summary datasets made available as open source files for download, or by querying a database of the complete data. This project began as the underlying database for the MR-Base and LD Hub projects. These data now serve as an input source to a wider number of analytical tools that implement methods such as Mendelian randomization, fine mapping, colocalisation, GWAS visualisation etc. |
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| Website | https://gwas.mrcieu.ac.uk |
| Principal investigator(s) | Tom Gaunt and Gibran Hemani |
| Funding | UKRI MRC, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust, University of Bristol |
| Data available | Data are described here:- https://gwas.mrcieu.ac.uk/datasets/ |
| Data access | Data is freely accessible to all academic users. Non-academic users are asked to get in touch for information about commercial use restrictions. |
| Relationship to IEU | The OpenGWAS resource is developed by the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) and CRUK Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme (ICEP) at the University of Bristol. The resource contains data contributed by studies and consortia around the world. These data are used extensively by members of the IEU and ICEP, but are also accessed by thousands of users around the world for their own research. |
UK Biobank
| Description |
UK Biobank is a major national cohort study based on 500,000 people recruited between the ages of 40-69 years in 2006-2010 from across the UK. to take part in this project. UK Biobank was established by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, Medical Research Council, Department of Health, Scottish Government and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. It has also had funding from the Welsh Assembly Government, British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK. UK Biobank is hosted by the University of Manchester and supported by the National Health Service (NHS). UK Biobank is open to bona fide researchers anywhere in the world, including those funded by academia and industry. |
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| Website | https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/ |
| Funding | UKRI MRC, Welcone Trust, BHF, CRUK, UKRI |
| Data available | Data are described here https://biobank.ndph.ox.ac.uk/showcase/ |
| Data access | Data can be requested by any bona fide researcher by submitting a project proposal. |
| Relationship to IEU | The IEU are standard users of UK Biobank data. Deborah Lawlor is a member of the UK Biobank Strategic Oversight Committee. |
UK10K project
| Description | The UK10K project has enabled researchers in the UK and beyond to better understand the link between low-frequency and rare genetic changes, and human disease caused by harmful changes to the proteins the body makes. Although many hundreds of genes that are involved in causing disease had already been identified, it was believed that many more remained to be discovered. The UK10K project aimed to help uncover them by studying the genetic code of 10,000 people in much finer detail than ever before. |
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| Website | https://www.uk10k.org/ |
| Funding | Welcome Trust |
| Data access | Access to sequence and phenotype data will be managed with oversight from appropriately constituted or nominated Data Access Committees (DACs). Data users are required to agree to the terms and conditions of a Data Access Agreement (DAA) which aims to protect the privacy and interests of the research participants. |
| Relationship to IEU | Nic Timpson led the ALSPAC sequence analyses the cohorts component of UK10K and a number of IEU researchers were involved in publications of the initial findings. |
