The 2023 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) drew over 7,000 delegates to Amsterdam, with more than 3,000 presentations delivered by global experts on disease mechanisms, biomarkers, diagnosis, treatment and care. The European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND) was well-represented at AAIC, with poster presentations and a guest feature at the exhibition stand of the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI).
EPND’s mission is to accelerate the discovery of diagnostics and treatments for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, by removing barriers to data and sample sharing, and by fostering collaboration. In particular, EPND aims to facilitate the discovery, development and validation of biomarkers, biological molecules that are measurable indicators of processes happening inside the body, such as the development of disease. To achieve these aims, EPND is developing a platform that will support the discovery and sharing of clinical data and biosamples from European research cohorts.
At AAIC, Pieter-Jelle Visser, Professor of Molecular Epidemiology of AD at the University of Maastricht, and co-Coordinator of EPND, gave a poster presentation explaining how the project is removing barriers to data and sample sharing, and fostering collaboration. In his presentation, he highlighted an important new development for EPND: the launch of the Cohort Catalogue, which brings together information on 69 research cohorts involving 180,825 research participants. To ensure the Cohort Catalogue would be as useful as possible, a vast array of metadata for each cohort was incorporated, Prof. Visser explained, providing researchers with a single location to easily search – and discover – the complete landscape of neurodegenerative disease cohorts across Europe, and beyond.
EPND partner Marina Boccardi, Professor of Implementation Neuroscience at the University of Rostock, presented a poster on the use of Target Product Profiles (TPP) in academic research. TPPs are widely used in industry, to address, define and communicate user needs in the drug development process. In her systemic review, carried out as part of the sustainability workstream in EPND, Prof. Boccardi identified a large number of publications on TPPs for infectious diseases, but found that these useful tools are rarely used in dementia research. To learn more about EPND, visit the project website:
