BioResource Centres
Our network of 18 Centres spans England, recruiting participants for the national BioResource. Some Centres also specialise in areas of local expertise.
Each BioResource Centre is connected to the corresponding local Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), which is another National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) supported infrastructure.
BioResource Programmes
Coordinated by our Centres, our BioResource Programmes build on our strengths to make a difference in a specific disease area.
More than 300,000 volunteers are split across different BioResource programmes or 'cohorts'. Some are actively recruiting new volunteers. All are open for research applications.
Find your nearest centre below:
COVID-19 BioResource: working with committed and passionate researchers and participants, we are involved in coronavirus cutting edge research.
D-CYPHR: dedicated specifically to research which will help children and young people.
General Population: everyone who volunteers makes the most important contribution to the search for better diagnosis and treatment.
IBD BioResource: a national platform designed to expedite research into Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
IBHO BioResource: focused on improving knowledge and understanding of health conditions and their unique impacts on UK Black communities.
IMID BioResource: helping research into Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases and the factors that determine severity.
Mental Health BioResource: research that aims to improve our understanding of different mental illnesses and identify new and better treatments.
NAFLD BioResource: a partnership that aims to identify new disease mechanisms and potential targets for treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Rare Diseases BioResource: we identify genetic causes of rare diseases, to improve diagnosis and to support work to develop and validate treatments. Our work will improve care for those with rare diseases and support their families.
RNA Phenotyping Project: the aim is to give a greater understanding of how and why rare diseases might occur.
The NIHR BioResource has been developed by researchers, for researchers.
Refine by phenotype, refine by genotype, refine your search.
Single consent, single database, single repository.
Each of us can make a unique and valuable contribution to health research. The support and goodwill of our volunteers is vital to our role as a facilitator of research that can benefit millions of people living with serious health conditions.
How we help
300,000
participants have joined us to help uncover the causes of disease
400+
research publications since 2009 supported by the BioResource and our participants
1,230,000
samples that help researchers in their work to tackle disease
Some of our studies
The NIHR BioResource is a recallable resource of more than 300,000 volunteers, with and without health conditions who have agreed to take part in health-related research.
We manage large cohorts of participants with different common and rare diseases and across the general population.
We support researchers from industry and academia with:
- participant recall by genotype or phenotype
- provision of genetic and/or clinical data
- stored samples: DNA (blood/saliva), plasma and serum
- recruitment of volunteers for research studies and early-phase clinical trials.
By screening our participants for genes and/or phenotypes of interest we enable research that would have otherwise proven too costly or time-consuming to happen.