An update on the SMILE BioResource
- Published: 05 August 2026
- Category: SMILE
It has been a busy first 9 months for the Severe Mental Illness Longitudinal Evaluation (SMILE) BioResource since the launch of patient recruitment in November 2025.
The SMILE BioResource - a collaboration led by the Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration Mission, the University of Oxford (Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre) and the NIHR BioResource – aims to investigate the causes of SMI and how best to develop new treatments.
Psychotic disorders affect up to 3% of the population, carry significant personal and healthcare burdens, and still lack clinically useful biomarkers despite decades of research. Researchers hope the SMILE BioResource will help to address this by uncovering the biological and environmental mechanisms of severe mental illness. Severe Mental Illness (SMI) is a term that includes mental health disorders such as psychosis spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders, and severe mood disorders with psychotic symptoms.
Recruitment milestone
The SMILE BioResource recently welcomed its 100th participant and aims to recruit up to 2,000 people aged 16+ with a recorded diagnosis of SMI. Recruitment is taking place across NHS Trusts in England and Wales, with 11 sites currently open.
The study is NIHR RDN portfolio adopted, and expressions of interest from additional sites are welcome.
The SMILE BioResource is part of the NIHR BioResource which comprises a collection of over 350,000 recallable volunteers. A key feature of the SMILE BioResource – as with all programmes run by the NIHR BioResource - is that participants can be recontacted for future research, allowing researchers to efficiently recruit volunteers into future observational studies and trials.
Protocol publication
Another major milestone came in July 2026 with the publication of the SMILE study protocol in BMJ Open. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is an important step for any large-scale research initiative, providing transparency about the study’s aims, methods and governance.
- Anthony Quinn, Project Manager for the SMILE BioResource"We were delighted to have the SMILE BioResource protocol paper published in July 2026 and are excited about the research opportunities that SMILE will support through data access and participant recall via the NIHR BioResource.
"The study team would like to thank all participants, lived experience contributors, research teams across England and Wales, the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (MH-TRC), and the NIHR BioResource for their invaluable collaboration in establishing and growing this important resource."
It also enables researchers, clinicians and participants to better understand the scientific foundations of the SMILE BioResource and supports wider engagement with the mental health research community.
National Participant Advisory Group (NPAG)
NPAG is a group of NIHR BioResource volunteers and members of the public who help ensure participants' voices are represented in the development and delivery of research.
Four SMILE BioResource participants are active NPAG members and have been highly engaged in reviewing research applications, supporting not only mental health studies but a wide range of health research across the NIHR BioResource.
- Francesca DelGuidice, National Participant Advisory Group (NPAG) member"Being part of SMILE has shown me how valuable it is when patients help shape research. Reaching 100 participants feels like a real achievement, and I am proud to have contributed.”
Conference attendance
The importance of SMILE and its ambitions for the future were highlighted at the recent NIHR BioResource Scientific Conference 2026.
Professor Rachel Upthegrove, Director of the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre and Chief Investigator of the SMILE BioResource study, presented the programme to delegates from across the research community, showcasing its vision, progress and opportunities for collaboration.
The presentation provided a valuable platform to raise awareness of the SMILE BioResource and its potential to accelerate mental health research through participant-centred approaches and data-enabled discovery.
Professor Upthegrove used her presentation to highlight a specific study, currently in its final stages, that could have benefitted from using SMILE BioResource during the participant recruitment phase to improve study efficiency. The PIMS trial required in-person screening of up to 10 participants to identify one individual with the right profile required for the trial. The SMILE BioResource can provide data from potential volunteers and allows researchers to accelerate the process of bringing participants into a study.
Through the SMILE BioResource, we hope to fill a major gap in UK mental health research with a re-contactable cohort of people with SMI, combining rich clinical data with biological samples to accelerate the search for better diagnostics, treatments and personalised approaches to care.
The team would like to thank all participants, lived experience contributors, researchers, and clinical partners who have contributed to the progress of SMILE. We look forward to sharing further updates as the SMILE BioResource continues to grow.
For further information about the SMILE BioResource, email: SMIbioresource@psych.ox.ac.uk or for questions about the NIHR BioResource, email: nbr@bioresource.nihr.ac.uk