NIHR BioResource

The NIHR BioResource is a panel of more than 217,000 volunteers, with and without health conditions, who are willing to take part in health research.

There are currently local BioResource Centres across England, with each centre connected to local NIHR infrastructure such as a Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). Academic and industry researchers can apply to the NIHR BioResource to access data, samples and or recall of participants by genotype and or phenotype in support of health research studies.

The NIHR Cambridge BRC supports the NIHR BioResource Cambridge Centre by working in partnership to bring researchers, volunteers and infrastructure together to deliver translational research.

The aim of the NIHR BioResource is to facilitate research by helping researchers with volunteer recruitment and recall specifically by genotype and or phenotype. Researchers can apply to the NIHR BioResource to access data and or samples from our volunteers. They may also apply for assistance with recruiting for or running online or in-person studies. We have a panel of more than 217,000 volunteers who can be contacted to take part in further research studies. These studies require their own ethically approved protocol and participant documents.

Our study coordination teams and research nurses can help researchers to effectively and efficiently run their research studies by contacting and inviting volunteers, screening volunteers according to specific health/medical criteria, booking volunteer appointments in our custom clinical research facility and collecting research samples. Our clinical research nurses support studies requiring a range of clinical tasks including venepuncture, skin biopsies, biometric measurements and other clinical procedures with appropriate training as required. For more involved research studies our coordination team can invite and screen volunteers and then refer them to the research team to take part in the study.

You can find out more about working with the NIHR BioResource and specifically the services available via our Cambridge BioResource or find our more about becoming a volunteer. Email us for more details at cbr@bioresource.nihr.ac.uk

Watch an animation to explain how the NIHR BioResource supports researchers