During September, the MIRIADE consortium held its annual meeting and training week, together with its 15 PhD students and their supervisors. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this is the first time the entire consortium has had the opportunity to meet in person. The training session consisted of research update presentations from the PhD students and plenary sessions from leading scientists and entrepreneurs in biomarker research. Most of the early stage researchers (ESRs) involved have recently completed the second year of their PhD, and several have already published their first scientific results in the project. The 15 ESRs presented their projects to the consortium members and outlined their scientific progress and findings over the past year. The consortium's scientific discussions brought additional insights into the ESRs’ projects.
Further, the collaboration between the consortium members is fulfilling a vital aim of MIRIADE, which is to maximise the availability of resources, in a harmonised workflow, to accelerate the dementia blood biomarkers’ development. During the training week, the ESRs had the opportunity to visit Alzheimer Nederland, where they participated in a workshop, to understand the process of communicating about research to people living with dementia. It was an exciting exercise in science communication and in understanding disease from the patient’s perspective. The training week also allowed the ESRs to socialise and to participate in interactive team-building events. Lastly, the MIRIADE consortium is happy to present a video filmed by the ESRs describing their work and their contributions to biomarker research for dementia: https://youtu.be/ZGIdBtIWV5g
