Taiwan Biobank: A rich biomedical research database of the Taiwanese population

Yen-Chen Anne Feng; Chia-Yen Chen; Tzu-Ting Chen; Po-Hsiu Kuo; Yi-Hsiang Hsu; Hwai-I Yang; Wei J Chen; Ming-Wei Su; Hou-Wei Chu; Chen-Yang Shen; Tian Ge; Hailiang Huang; Yen-Feng Lin

doi:10.1016/j.xgen.2022.100197

Taiwan Biobank: A rich biomedical research database of the Taiwanese population

Cell Genom. 2022 Oct 12;2(11):100197. doi: 10.1016/j.xgen.2022.100197. eCollection 2022 Nov 9.

Authors

Yen-Chen Anne Feng¹, Chia-Yen Chen², Tzu-Ting Chen³, Po-Hsiu Kuo^{1

4}, Yi-Hsiang Hsu^{5

6

7

8}, Hwai-I Yang^{9

10

11

12}, Wei J Chen^{1

3

4}, Ming-Wei Su¹³, Hou-Wei Chu¹³, Chen-Yang Shen^{14

15}, Tian Ge^{16

17}, Hailiang Huang^{16

18

19}, Yen-Feng Lin^{3

20

21}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Biogen, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ Center for Neuropsychiatric Research, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine and National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Marcus Institute for Aging Research and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
⁷ Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
⁸ Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁹ Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹¹ Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
¹² Biomedical Translation Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹³ Taiwan Biobank, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁴ Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁵ Graduate Institute of Environmental Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
¹⁶ Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹⁷ Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁸ Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁰ Department of Public Health & Medical Humanities, School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan.
²¹ Institute of Behavioral Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.

Abstract

The Taiwan Biobank (TWB) is an ongoing prospective study of >150,000 individuals aged 20-70 in Taiwan. A comprehensive list of phenotypes was collected for each consented participant at recruitment and follow-up visits through structured interviews and physical measurements. Biomarkers and genetic data were generated from blood and urine samples. We present here an overview of TWB's genetic data quality, population structure, and familial relationship, which consists of predominantly Han Chinese ancestry, and highlight its important attributes and genetic findings thus far. A linkage to Taiwan's National Health Insurance database of >25 years and other registries is underway to enrich the phenotypic spectrum and enable deep and longitudinal genetic investigations. TWB provides one of the largest biobank resources for biomedical and public health research in East Asia that will contribute to our understanding of the genetic basis of health and disease in global populations through collaborative studies with other biobanks.

Abstract

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