On 29 November, the European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND) project hosted its kick-off meeting online. EPND, an Innovative Medicines Initiative project that was launched earlier this month, aims to build a collaborative platform for data and biosample sharing, to accelerate the discovery and validation of biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases.
EPND brings together 29 partners from the public and private sectors and is co-led by Pieter Jelle Visser (University of Maastricht), Anthony Brookes (University of Leicester), Niranjan Bose (Gates Ventures) and Phil Scordis (UCB Biopharma). With AC Immune, Alzheimer Europe is co-leading a workpackage on stakeholder engagement, public involvement, communication and dissemination. Joining the kick-off meeting were representatives from the 29 EPND partner organisations, as well as principal investigators of 46 cohorts and biobanks that will eventually contribute data and samples to the platform. Phil Scordis opened the meeting by outlining the challenges that EPND has been designed to address.
The incidence of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease is high, he explained, and is projected to double by 2050. Data and samples from neurodegenerative disease research cohorts is often siloed, making them hard to access. EPND hopes to accelerate research and development of new diagnostic tools and therapies, by making neurodegenerative disease data and samples more easily discoverable and accessible to the research community.
Next, Pieter Jelle Visser outlined the EPND vision, explaining how better and more diverse biomarkers for neurodegenerative disease could give us a greater understanding of the underlying biological processes. He emphasised that EPND has been designed to build on existing initiatives and clinical networks, such as the European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium and the BBMRI biobank catalogue, and will use data ontologies, access tools and online work spaces that are already available, such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Workbench. After a short break, the Workpackage (WP) leaders gave brief presentations identifying key objectives, tasks and interdependencies with other WPs.
Drawing the meeting to a close, Kalliopi Christoforidi presented the IMI perspective, reminding partners about the EU reporting requirements and wishing them lots of success over the next five years of EPND. EPND has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No. 101034344. The JU receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme and EFPIA. Find out more about EPND:
