58FORWARDS. (The 1958 Birth Cohort: Fostering new Opportunities for Research via Wider Access to Reliable Data and Samples). (360G-Wellcome-108439_Z_15_Z)

The 1958 Birth Cohort (1958BC) recruited 17,416 British newborns 3-9 March 1958. A Biomedical Resource (58BMR) was later created by the biomedical survey (Strachan, Power, Bynner [2002/3]) to include extensive questionnaire data, physical measures and biosamples on 1958BC participants. The biosamples, stored in ALSPAC laboratories at the University of Bristol, include blood, urine and saliva (9,000+ participants), DNA (8000+), lymphoblastic cell lines (7,500+). Most participants providing DNA h ave been genome-wide-genotyped (data held at European-Genome-Phenome-Archive). Other data are held at UK-Data-Archive, managed by Centre for Longitudinal Studies. The 58BMR is used widely by biomedical, social and population scientists nationally and worldwide. 58FORWARDS will maintain and develop the infrastructure for managing, linking and releasing biosamples/data from 58BMR, facilitating scientific exploitation by making biosamples/data readily available for sharing. 58FORWARDS has three aim s: (1) Fund and support pre-existing procedures and systems that have underpinned the 58BMR for > 10 years; (2) Ensure targeted development of key systems and procedures to meet rapid, and understandable, changes in the strategy of national funders regarding infrastructural support for major UK cohorts; (3) Ensure that access to data and biosamples from the 58BMR remains streamlined and secure through all maintenance and development work.