Participants

Participants background image; representation of different people

Bringing people together and leading research 

We are a partnership of volunteers and researchers, working together to enable high-impact medical research into a variety of common and rare diseases and helping improve patient outcomes, by accelerating diagnosis and developing new treatments.

 

 

Want to help to make a difference?

We are always looking for new volunteers, with and without health conditions, to join us!

Every person who joins plays an important role in our efforts to understand the links between genes, the environment, health and disease. 

Joining is quick and easy and can be done at one of our centres, via a saliva kit in the mail, or at your blood donor appointment. 

Join the BioResource

Or are you already a member?

Our almost 300,000 volunteers are at the heart of our work to help researchers better understand the causes of disease and to improve diagnosis and patient outcomes.

If you are already a volunteer, thank you so much for taking part! Without you, vital health research cannot progress.

As a volunteer, you can easily update your email preferences, learn about how we handle your data, withdraw your details and more.

Show me members' content

Get in touch

If you are interested in finding out more about the BioResource or if you have questions, email our recruitment team at nbr@bioresource.nihr.ac.uk

A participant's story 

This inspiring story from one of our amazing volunteers explains why she takes part in research and why she believes it is important others do too!

Without our volunteers, we would not be able to support the vital health research improving patient outcomes for those with common and rare diseases.

Case studies

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

One of our participants talked about living with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), the changes they had to make to their lifestyle, eating habits and why they joined the study to benefit health research. 

NALFD is one of several disease cohorts we operate at the BioResource led by the Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre. 

NAFLD BioResource

Illustration of people arranged as pie chart to illustrate populations

Our cohorts

We work with key cohorts of volunteers in rare diseases, common diseases and healthy populations. Due to the specialist work needed to support COVID research, we have a special section for that too. 

Every volunteer and each cohort plays a vital role in our efforts to improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

Representation of DNA jigsaw puzzle to illustrate genetic research

Our studies

Our volunteers help us to understand and improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

You can search our approved studies based on clinical speciality, type of study (participant recall, online, samples and data, data only) and research type. 

BioResource studies

Meeting of several people

How we are governed 

How do we provide the best value to our researchers, our participants and to medicine? Click below to find out. 

Governance and ethics