On 17 February, EPAD held its first local community meeting among the Scottish research sites, collaborators, academics and scientists who have been involved in the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) throughout the IMI funded period and now continue to contribute to the study locally. The first local EPAD community meeting focused on carrying on data collection within the established EPAD LCS network in Scotland, follow-on studies and open access for the large EPAD data including bio samples and imaging data. The community meeting also marked the launch of the first post-IMI EPAD local initiative which they hope will be one of many across Europe to carry on collecting longitudinal data from the participants who have already contributed valuable data over several years, as well as for the research community to share ideas.
The lead of the EPAD project Prof Craig Ritchie gave an overview of the post-IMI period including work already published and encouraging the research community to apply for the EPAD LCS data now freely available. Attendees also got an overview from the other speakers on how to access the biosamples, the collaboration between EPAD and GAP and many of the follow-on studies. Some of the follow-on studies include a limited version of the original EPAD study protocol as well as studies using retinal imaging and speech analysis. AE Project Officer Cindy Birck gave a presentation to remind that the EPAD communications tools are still active to share the current work to keep EPAD going.
http://ep-ad.org/local-actions-to-keep-the-epad-longitudinal-cohort-data-collection-going/
