University of Exeter to Profile Epigenetics of UK Biobank Samples with Illumina Tech

University of Exeter will profile DNA methylation across one million genomic sites with funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and technical support from Illumina.

University of Exeter researchers will map DNA methylation across the genomes of 60,000 UK Biobank participants in a £16 million ($21.5 million) epigenetics study aimed at uncovering the biological mechanisms linking genes, environment, and disease.

Funding comes primarily from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, with additional support from Illumina, which developed the methylation array technology that will be used to characterize epigenetic variation.

UK Biobank, which has collected biological, health and lifestyle data from 500,000 UK volunteers over two decades, already holds genetic, proteomic, imaging and questionnaire data. The new dataset will add a layer of methylation information, allowing researchers to examine how gene regulation interacts with environmental exposures such as diet, pollution, stress, medication and smoking to influence disease.

“We can begin to map how disease risk is shaped over the life course, opening up new opportunities for earlier detection, prevention, and more precise treatments across a wide range of diseases,” Jonathan Mill, a researcher at the University of Exeter and director of the UK Functional Genomics Initiative, said in a statement.

The data could support identification of blood-based biomarkers linked to early disease changes, new treatment targets tied to epigenetically regulated genes and pathways, and epigenetic predictors of other molecular measures already available in UK Biobank, including protein levels and metabolites.

The effort joins a separate government-funded effort in the UK to performing epigenetics with long-read sequencing of UK Biobank samples.