Full-body scans of 100,000 people could change way diseases are detected and treated
Scientists expect to gain unprecedented insights into human ageing and the earliest signs of disease after scanning 100,000 people from head to toe in the world’s largest whole body imaging project.
The completion of the decade-long task means qualifying researchers worldwide will have access to 1bn de-identified images of the hearts, brains, abdomens, blood vessels, bones and joints of volunteers alongside medical histories and rich data on their genetic makeup, health and lifestyle.
Subsets of the images compiled by UK Biobank, which follows the health of half a million people in Britain, have already underpinned breakthroughs in how the heart influences psychiatric disorders and shown that the scans can predict dozens of future diseases. They also suggest no amount of alcohol consumption is healthy.
“Researchers now have an incredible window into the body,” said Naomi Allen, the chief scientist at UK Biobank. “For the first time, researchers can study how we age and how diseases develop in stunning detail and at a massive scale.”
