eLIXIR, Early Lifecourse data Cross-LInkage in Research; a Multidisciplinary Partnership

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The developing embryo, fetus and newborn child are very sensitive to change in the surrounding environment, whether this arises from problems with the mother's health, the placenta not working properly, complications during birth, or as consequence of being born too early. Adversity in these periods of developmental vulnerability can have persistent effects on the long term health of the child, including physical and mental health disorders. We also know that if a mother has complications in pregnancy, that she may suffer from increased risk of ill-heath in later life, for example cardiovascular disease, diabetes or mental health problems. To reduce the risk of these diseases in the child and in the mother, we need to know more about the processes leading up to them. One approach is to capture the information from hospital and general practice health care records as the child grows up, or as the mother gets older, and through the study of this data and routinely collected blood samples, work out when and why the disorders happen. When we know this, we shall be able to work out how to prevent them. In England routine health records are held in different computer systems and are not easy to assemble. Our partnership, the eLIXIR partnership of doctors, scientists and IT specialists has developed a way to put all this data together and to collect it continuously. We shall start doing this in a large population from a deprived area of South London, where health is poor compared to other areas of England. When we have shown this system works, we plan to extend the study to a much bigger population in London and elsewhere. This new and important research resource will help us explore the 'life course' of some of the most common diseases, and help scientists and doctors to work out how we may prevent them.