2005 marked the 30th anniversary of the Utah Population Database (UPDB), one of the world’s richest resources of genetic, demographic, and public health information. Under the directorship of Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) investigator Geraldine Mineau, PhD, the UPDB integrates public and cancer records, pedigrees, and vital statistics.

“Researchers from genetics, epidemiology, population studies, and other diverse areas of medicine use the UPDB to conduct studies that would be difficult or impossible to do elsewhere,” says Mineau, who is also a research professor in the University of Utah’s Department of Oncological Sciences. “No other database allows such detailed correlation of genealogical, medical, and demographic records over such a broad span of generations and individuals.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, the UPDB was instrumental in research that isolated gene mutations which cause some inherited predispositions to breast, skin, and colon cancer. It continues as a major source of information for scientists studying cancer and many other public health issues. For example, HCI researchers currently use information from the database in the search for genetic predispositions to melanoma and to study trends in human fertility and longevity patterns.

The UPDB contains nearly nine million individual records including ancestral files of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stretching back as far as ten generations; the 1880 Utah Territorial Census; birth, marriage, divorce, death, and driver license records from Utah and federal sources; and Utah and Idaho cancer records. The identity of all individuals in the database and the confidentiality of the data is strictly protected. The UPDB is the only database of its kind in the United States, and one of only a few such resources in the world.

The mother and father in this photo (taken circa 1900) have 13,000 descendants who are tracked in the UPDB, offering valuable information for studying inherited diseases.