Why take part

The main benefit is the chance to help with medical research. You’ll be helping researchers, who will use your data to understand the genetics behind common diseases. This research could help NHS planning and, in time, may benefit future generations.

It's expected that recruitment will take around 3 years, so we’re unlikely to deliver useful information until after this. It will take a lot of time and work to understand how genetics affects health and disease. Meanwhile, research is likely to be published and you will see all our latest updates on the website, in social media or via newsletters we send you, if you take part.

There won’t be immediate feedback of results, if you choose to take part. However, we’d like to offer you the opportunity of feedback of limited “actionable” genetic results, if they become available. You don’t have to agree to feedback of results to take part in the study.

We work closely with the NHS clinical genetics service who would advise if there were any results to share with you. There’s no guarantee we’ll have research findings that will benefit you. Due Covid-19 research, it is taking longer than expected to return results. We hope to begin returning results in the next 2 years.

As with most charity and public sector research, people who take part will not be paid. The postage for the return of the saliva sample will be prepaid.

Proof of paternity is a sensitive issue. Paternity testing can identify relationships between people from their genes. Although we welcome people from the same family, we will not return details about the family relationships of volunteers. No requests for this type of analysis will be considered. If you need paternity testing, there are certified organisations in the UK that you can approach. We cannot provide any reccomendations.

Completing the questionnaire will take about 1 hour. Producing the saliva (spit) required (a teaspoon) for the kit and posting this back to us can also take some time.