Genomic prediction of anthropomorphic traits using hundreds of thousands of individuals

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Most of the common diseases that afflict humans and other traits of medical relevance (for instance, blood pressure or cholesterol levels) are determined by the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Unlike environmental factors, genetic factors can be accurately and inexpensively measured, are constant over time and can be measured as early as at birth. Genetic information could potentially be useful to identify what people are at highest risk of disease and therefore preventative strategies could be designed for those individuals that need them most. However, prediction of risk or other traits that are determined by thousands of genes has been very challenging because, until now, there were not sufficient people with trait and genetic information recorded to yield accurate predictions, or computational tools to analyse the large volumes of data needed to yield accurate predictions. The UK Biobank (a large epidemiological study) has now around 500,000 individuals genotyped (i.e. with genetic information) and with phenotypes, and we have developed computer software to analyse this cohort in the UK national supercomputer called ARCHER. We will develop prediction models for nine exemplar traits (e.g. height or body weight) in this cohort to show that prediction from genetic markers is feasible. If we could show that these traits can be accurately predicted, it would mean that predictions could too work for diseases such as colorectal or breast cancer. This would open the way to personalised medicine.