An incredible resource for researchers
Around 1.5million people interact with the NHS every day – through GP practices, hospitals and mental health services, for example. For researchers, this offers the potential for an invaluable and enormous pool of people to help them study health and illness.
One way in which researchers can tap into this pool is through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) BioResource, which its Director Dr Nathalie Kingston says matches up members of the public with researchers looking for subjects.
Since its launch in 2007, almost a quarter of a million people – around half of whom are healthy, while the other half have a health condition – have joined the BioResource’s ‘panel of participants’. Although anyone can sign up, its team actively recruits via NHS clinics patients affected by specific conditions – anything from common diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, depression and COVID-19 to rare genetic disorders – and ‘matches’ them to studies and clinical trials.
Participants donate blood – and in some cases saliva – samples, often repeatedly over several months or even years. With the participant’s consent, their samples are analysed and shared with researchers in academia and industry. Where patients have been recruited via their clinical care teams, case reports can provide additional valuable information about their specific condition, such as the year of diagnosis, what kind of treatment they are on and whether they are in remission, for example.
It has had some notable successes. For example, in 2019, NIHR BioResource volunteers participated in research that led to a diagnosis of a rare disease in approximately one in five babies with previously unexplained sickness. Because of this research, now all seriously ill babies in England are tested for genetic variations that can provide a diagnosis, get early access to treatment, and improve patient outcomes.
A recent Cambridge-led study found that the protection offered by COVID-19 vaccination declines more rapidly in people with severe obesity than in those with normal weight. This discovery was only possible because the BioResource allows researchers to go back to consenting patients multiple times for samples.
While its national coordinating centre is hosted in Cambridge, the BioResource stretches out across all of England, with 18 local BioResource Centres from Exeter to Newcastle.
None of this would be possible without the NHS, says Kingston.
"[The NHS] is completely key for us. Our partnership with NHSBT [NHS Blood and Transplant] allows us to recruit healthy volunteers – blood donors – but if you want to have access to a patient with a specific condition for research or clinical trials, it just wouldn’t be possible to recruit at the level we do without the NHS."
With over 100,000 patients recruited through NHS clinics, it’s little surprise that other countries are looking to emulate what we do. Most recently, delegations from Switzerland and the Netherlands have been in touch about establishing their own bioresources, says Kingston
Ultimately, of course, the BioResource is more than just a resource to help researchers reach patients. It is – and has to be – a two-way interaction.
"The BioResource is all about the endpoint. And the endpoint is improving patient health for everyone."
How can you help?
If you are interested in volunteering with the BioResource to be part of future research we support, whether or not you have a health condition, we’d love to hear from you. All of our volunteers are consented to the NIHR BioResource and will be re-contactable to participate in further research, following standard protocols for being a BioResource volunteer.
You can keep up to date with NIHR BioResource on Twitter and LinkedIn.
If you are a researcher interested in working with the NIHR BioResource to support your work, please get in touch.