World's largest body-scanning project to understand why diseases occur 世界規模最大人體掃描項目幫助瞭解疾病成因

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World’s largest body-scanning project to understand why diseases occur 世界規模最大人體掃描項目幫助瞭解疾病成因

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Fergus Walsh, AYYBLOG Medical Editor, UK Biobank volunteer
Mapping the ageing human body. It’s nearly a decade since I last had these images of my brain, heart and other organs taken. Now, over five hours in multiple different scanners, it’s all being repeated. Why?

弗格斯·沃爾什 AYYBLOG醫療事務報道員英國生物樣本庫志願者
為在逐漸衰老的人體繪制導圖。距離上一次我接受腦部、心臟和其它器官的全面掃描已有近十年瞭。現在，在接下來的五小時中，我將重復做上次做過的各種身體掃描。這是為什麼？

Fergus Walsh, AYYBLOG Medical Editor, UK Biobank volunteer
“The repeat imaging of thousands of volunteers will enable researchers to see subtle changes in the body that develop over the years. These may give early warning of conditions like heart disease and dementia long before there are any symptoms.”

弗格斯·沃爾什 AYYBLOG醫療事務報道員英國生物樣本庫志願者
“對成千上萬名志願者重復進行身體掃描可以讓研究人員觀察到在過去幾年內他們身體中發生的微小變化。這可能會對多種疾病的發病給出早期預警信號，包括心臟病、失智癥，而且可能早在出現任何癥狀前就給出預警信號。”

The entire genetic code of every UK Biobank volunteer has been sequenced, so scientists can analyse DNA alongside images of the brain and body.

每位英國生物樣本庫中志願者的基因編碼都已被測序，這樣科學傢就可以在分析大腦與身體掃描圖像的同時分析脫氧核糖核酸。

Professor Naomi Allen, Chief Scientist, UK Biobank
“Well, I think our real interest is being able to look at changes in the structure and function of the brain over time as that may give us ideas as to what are the determinants of early cognitive impairment and early biomarkers of dementia, so I think that is one of the most exciting aspects of this study.”

娜奧米·艾倫教授英國生物樣本庫首席科學傢
“我們特別感興趣的是能夠觀察大腦的結構和功能在一段時間中的變化，這可能讓我們瞭解到認知障礙初期的決定性因素以及失智癥的早期生物標記是什麼，所以我覺得這是這項研究最激動人心的方面之一。”

All five hundred thousand volunteers had baseline health, lifestyle and cognitive assessments when they joined over a decade ago. Repeat testing helps scientists track any decline. To date, over seven thousand research papers have been published using the data.

所有五十萬名志願者都接受瞭健康情況、生活方式和認知能力的基準線評估，以在十多年前參與這個項目。重復檢測幫助科學傢追蹤任何指標的衰退情況。迄今為止，已有超過7000份公開發表的研究報告使用瞭這個樣本庫的數據。

Professor Paul Elliott, Epidemiologist, Imperial College London
“UK Biobank is the gold standard internationally for this type of study. It brings together blood samples, scans, a linkage through the NHS (UK’s National Health Service) to people’s health records with their consent. So it gives an extraordinarily deep understanding of the causes of disease, which then can lead to better prevention and also treatments.”

保羅·艾略特教授倫敦帝國理工學院流行病學傢
“英國生物樣本庫是國際上這類研究的標桿。它匯集瞭血液樣本、身體掃描、並在征得瞭志願者的許可後把他們在英國國傢醫療服務體系中的健康記錄相關聯。這些信息讓研究人員對疾病成因有瞭極其深入的理解，進而可以引領我們更好地預防和治療疾病。”

With every year that passes and volunteers like me get older, UK Biobank will yield ever more information on how to combat the diseases of ageing.

年復一年，像我這樣的志願者逐漸變老，英國生物樣本庫也將不斷產出更多可以幫助我們對抗老年疾病的信息。