UK Biobank is broadening scientists' access to high-quality genomic data and analysis by making its massive dataset available in the cloud alongside NVIDIA GPU-accelerated analysis tools.
Used by more than 25,000 registered researchers around the world, UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource with deidentified genetic datasets, along with medical imaging and health record data, from more than 500,000 participants across the U.K.
Regeneron Genetics Center, the high-throughput sequencing center of biotech leader Regeneron, recently teamed up with UK Biobank to sequence and analyze the exomes - all protein-coding portions of the genome - of all the biobank participants.
The Regeneron team used NVIDIA Clara Parabricks, a software suite for secondary genomic analysis of next-generation sequencing data, during the exome sequencing process.
UK Biobank has released 450,000 of these exomes for access by approved researchers, and is now providing scientists six months of free access to Clara Parabricks through its cloud-based Research Analysis Platform. It was developed by bioinformatics platform DNAnexus, which lets scientists use Clara Parabricks running on NVIDIA GPUs in the AWS cloud.
As demonstrated by Regeneron, GPU acceleration with Clara Parabricks achieves the throughputs, speed and reproducibility needed when processing genomic datasets at scale, said Dr. Mark Effingham, deputy CEO of UK Biobank. There are a number of research groups in the U.K. who were pushing for these accelerated tools to be available in our platform for use with our extensive dataset.
Regeneron Exome Research Accelerated by Clara Parabricks Regeneron's researchers used the DeepVariant Germline Pipeline from NVIDIA Clara Parabricks to run their analysis with a model specific to the genetic center's workflow.
Its researchers identified 12 million coding variants and hundreds of genes associated with health-related traits - certain genes were associated with increased risk for liver disease and eye disease, and others were linked to lower risk of diabetes and asthma.
The unique set of tools the researchers used for high-quality variant detection is available to UK Biobank registered users through the Research Analysis Platform. This capability will allow scientists to harmonize their own exome data with sequenced exome data from UK Biobank by running the same bioinformatics pipeline used to generate the initial reference dataset.
Cloud-Based Platform Improves Equity of Access Researchers deciphering the genetic codes of humans - and of the viruses and bacteria that infect humans - can often be limited by the computational resources available to them.
UK Biobank is democratizing access by making its dataset open to scientists around the world, with a focus on further extending use by early-career researchers and those in low- and middle-income countries. Instead of researchers needing to download this huge dataset to use on their own compute resources, they can instead tap into UK Biobank's cloud platform through a web browser.
We were being contacted by researchers and clinicians who wanted to access UK Biobank data, but were struggling with access to the basic compute needed to work with even relatively small-scale data, said Effingham. The cloud-based platform provides access to the world-class technology needed for large-scale exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing analysis.
Researchers using the platform pay only for the computational cost of their analyses and for storage of new data they generate from the biobank's petabyte-scale dataset, Effingham said.
Using Clara Parabricks on DNAnexus helps reduce both the time and cost of this genomic analysis, delivering a whole exome analysis that would take nearly an hour of computation on a 32-vCPU machine in less than five minutes - while also reducing cost by approximately 40 percent.
Exome Sequencing Provides Insights for Precision Medicine For researchers studying links between genetics and disease, exome sequencing is a critical tool - and the UK Biobank dataset includes nearly half a million participant exomes to work with.
The exome is approximately 1.5 percent of the human genome, and consists of all the known genes and their regulatory elements. By studying genetic variation in exomes across a large, diverse population, scientists can better understand the population's structure, helping researchers address evolutionary questions and describe how the genome works.
With a dataset as large as UK Biobank's, it is also possible to identify the specific genetic variants associated with inherited diseases, including cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative conditions and some kinds of cancer.
Exome sequencing can even shed light on potential genetic drivers that might increase or decrease an individual's risk of severe disease from COVID-19 infection, Effingham said. As the pandemic continues, UK Biobank is adding COVID case data, vaccination status, imaging data and patient outcomes for thousands of participants to its database.
Get started with NVIDIA Clara Parabricks on the DNAnexus-developed UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform. Learn more about the exome sequencing project by registering for this webinar, which takes place Feb. 17 at 8am Pacific.
Subscribe to NVIDIA healthcare news here.
Main image shows the freezer facility at UK Biobank where participant samples are stored. Image courtesy of UK Biobank.
North America Stories
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
Experimental HIV vaccine achieves a long-sought goal In a first for the field, all non-human primates given a new series of vaccines generated antibodies capabl...
28/05/2026
FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...
28/05/2026
One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
28/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...
28/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
28/05/2026
Hosted by ESPN Senior Writer Ryan McGee, the ceremony honored winners from athletic departments, conference offices, professional networks, production companies...
28/05/2026
Major rights-holders rolled out their 2026 college football slates today, offering a first look at marquee windows, kickoff partners, and conference distributio...
28/05/2026
The 4 Nations Face-Off, an international competition that launched in February 2...
28/05/2026
Soccer is a truly global sport, and, to match the U.S. viewing audience's in...
28/05/2026
The NFL Today, CBS Sports' top-of-the-line NFL studio show, has a storied hi...
28/05/2026
Prime Video is no stranger to innovation, and, within the realm of live streamin...
28/05/2026
The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, and the cheer of the crowd: those are three prime examples of the glorious sounds fans hear on televised baseball ga...
UK Biobank is broadening scientists' access to high-quality genomic data and analysis by making its massive dataset available in the cloud alongside NVIDIA GPU-accelerated analysis tools.
