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The EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) will shortly begin a major new cohesive action with the European Commission – the first concrete synergy between JPND and Horizon 2020 designed to address the global threat of neurodegenerative diseases.

As part of this new initiative, JPND will launch a joint transnational call for proposals in January 2015 aimed at supporting transnational research collaborations in three JPND priority areas:

  • Longitudinal Cohorts
  • Advanced Experimental Models
  • Risk and Protective Factors

The aim of the call is to support a limited number of ambitious, high level, innovative, multi-national and multi-disciplinary collaborative research projects that will add value to the respective research areas.

The call will see more than 30 million euro being made available by JPND member countries, including a significant additional European Commission “topping up” component of up to 30%.

This will be a 2-step call, anticipated to launch in early January 2015, with a likely first stage (pre-proposal submission) deadline of March 2015.

Further detail will be provided at the time of the call launch date in January 2015. However, the indicative titles of each call topic are provided below:

Topic 1: Genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk and protective factors of neurodegenerative diseases:

Due to the phenomenal number of high quality proposals received but unsupported under the 2012 JPND joint transnational call, JPND is re-launching a call topic in this area. Examples of areas covered under this topic again include identification of novel genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk and protective factors associated with neurodegenerative disorders in animal, cell and human studies.

Topic 2: Longitudinal cohorts in neurodegenerative disease research:

The key priority under this topic will be to enhance the capabilities of existing longitudinal cohort studies, or linking related studies to address key questions through a synergistic approach. This topic will aim to build upon the report of the JPND Action Group in this area as well as referencing the ongoing work of the JPND Working Groups, supported under the 2014 JPND “rapid action” call.

Topic 3: Advanced experimental models of neurodegenerative diseases:

This topic will focus on the encouragement of a next generation of reliable and well characterized animal and cell models for neurodegenerative diseases, building upon the report of the JPND Action Group in this area. This may include the development of novel animal models for specific diseases to better reproduce the complexity of the clinical features of the disease in humans, the enhancement of existing animal models (e.g. by fostering a deeper characterization of the phenotypes and pathologies), and the exploitation of novel (or the improvement of existing) neuronal, neuronal-like cells or inducible pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, generated from different sources.

Please Note: 

  • Proposals are not limited to each topic, and may cover two or more topics.
  • JPND countries may support one, two or three call topics so applicants will need to take this into consideration.
  • Call applicants are encouraged to take advantage of the JPND online partnering tool to showcase their research group’s expertise, search for appropriate partners and pitch call-related ideas. An improved, multi-lingual version of the pilot tool is now available here.
  • All information regarding future JPND Call topics is indicative and subject to change.
  • Final call information will be published on the JPND website.

The JPND diseases are:
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias, Parkinson’s disease (PD) and PD‐related disorders, Prion disease, Motor neurone diseases (MND), Huntington’s disease (HD), Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA), Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)

 

A total of fifteen international consortia have been proposed for funding under two JPND Transnational calls between a total of 18 countries.

These new projects are aiming to analyse neurodegenerative diseases across traditional clinical boundaries, and also to begin “pilot” studies for the design of preventive strategies.

The projects are supported under two JPND transnational calls for proposals entitled:

The calls were launched in December 2013 with a pre-proposal deadline of March 2014. Sixteen countries participated in each call.

The project proposals have been proposed for funding by the respective Peer Review Panels based on scientific evaluation and by the respective Call Steering Committees based on budget availability.

For further information on the projects proposed for funding, click on the links below.

The JPND Newsletter brings together a number of relevant JPND news stories for JPND international stakeholder communities.

Contents include highlights of JPND activities, information on JPND-supported projects as well as interviews with JPND Scientific Advisory Board members.

The third edition (September 2014) is available here or at the link below.

Ten international working groups to be funded under JPND call

The EU Joint Programme Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) has released the results of a “rapid action” call to support ten groups of leading scientists in finding ways to enhance the use of longitudinal cohort studies for neurodegenerative disease (ND) research.

JPND launched this call on 23rd April 2014 as part of a series of new JPND initiatives, designed to amplify the impact of research by aligning and building upon existing national programmes and initiatives, and to bring a more wide-ranging and multidisciplinary approach to research on neurodegenerative diseases.

The awarded proposals are for top ND scientists to come together and recommend how to address the most pressing issues that prevent full use of longitudinal cohorts. This includes population studies and disease cohorts, both having considerable potential for ND research.  Funding decisions were based upon scientific evaluation and recommendations to the ten sponsor countries by a JPND Peer Review Panel.

Awards cover a wide ND landscape (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, Lewy-body and vascular dementia) and different groups will address methodological challenges for studies in a number of areas,  including cognition/functional assessment, biomarkers and biobanking, imaging, health and social outcomes and presymptomatic ND.

“The plan is that each group will push forward the conceptualization of a key challenge and derive valuable guidelines and/or best practice frameworks for the wider research community” , commented Dr. Rob Buckle, Director of Science Programmes at the UK Medical Research Council, the organisation which facilitated the call process.

According to Professor Philippe Amouyel, Chair of the JPND Management Board “this is an excellent outcome for JPND and a significant opportunity to advance the field.  A rapid and flexible JPND process is now established to achieve JPND strategic goals, here to promote harmonisation of approaches and data sharing. These outputs will accelerate the progress of future studies by the global ND community”.

Each Working Group is expected to run for a maximum of 6 months, reporting back to JPND by Q1 2015.  Looking to the future, and drawing on advice emerging from the Working Groups. JPND is likely to launch a follow-up call for full scientific applications on longitudinal cohort studies, to be received next year.

For further information on the Working Groups awards, click on the link below:

Thousands of researchers from over 60 countries will gather later this week (July 12-17) in Copenhagen, Denmark for the 2014 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC).

The outputs of the JPND Action Group on Longitudinal Cohorts will be presented on Monday, July 14 (4:00pm – 5:30pm) in Auditorium 15 of the conference center.

Elizabeth Breeze, PhD from the UK Alzheimer’s Society will deliver a presentation entitled Cohort studies have a role to play in dementia research drawing from an analysis of European longitudinal cohorts from the published JPND portfolio of research and a scoping exercise undertaken by the UK Alzheimer’s Society.

Authors:

  1. Elizabeth Breeze, Alzheimer’s Society, London, United Kingdom
  2. Nicola Jean Hart, Alzheimer’s Society, London, United Kingdom
  3. Dag Aarsland, Karolinska Institutet, Stavanger, Norway
  4. Catherine Moody, UK Medical Research Council on behalf of JPND
  5. Carol Brayne, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

The AAIC conference in Copenhagen will reveal the latest study results, theories and discoveries bringing the world closer to breakthroughs in dementia science.

The report captures the discussions that took place at the JPND-AAL Joint Workshop, held on January 27th, 2014, at the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam (Netherlands).

JPND and the Article-185 initiative – Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) are aligning priorities in the area of assisted living technologies for neurodegenerative diseases.

The main objectives of JPND–AAL JP engagement are to agree on a common research agenda, to align research priorities for neurodegenerative diseases and to determine how to implement priorities through partnership.

Relevant AAL solutions and projects were showcased during the workshop with discussions centering on the potential impact of AAL/ICT projects for people with neurodegenerative diseases from the user and market perspectives. 

At the workshop it was observed that approximately 25% of current AALJP projects are already developing solutions for the support and care of older adults with cognitive impairments/dementia and their (informal) carers. 

The workshop report as well as links to current AAL projects in the area of neurodegenerative diseases are available for download at the link below. 

Professor Philippe Amouyel outlines recent JPND progress in the latest edition of International Innovation magazine.

To access the individual article, click on the link below.

International Innovation Magazine

Click here, or on the link below to access other international press articles related to JPND. 

For more information on International innovation magazine, click here.

A Youtube-hosted webinar will take place from 13:00-13:45 (GMT+1/BST) on Friday, May 9th, 2014, to outline the main aspects of the JPND „Rapid Action“ Call for Working Groups on Longitudinal Cohorts.

On April 23rd, 2014, JPND announced the launch of a new type of Call – a Call for working groups – to inform cohorts for neurodegenerative disease research.  

This "rapid action" is part of a series of new JPND initiatives, designed to enhance the impact of research by aligning and building upon existing national programmes and initiatives (click here for a call-related interview with the JPND Management Board chair – Prof. Philippe Amouyel).

The May 9th webinar, delivered by the Medical Research Council, UK, will give a brief introduction to the call, and will answer any questions that interested parties may have, such as Working Group composition and submission of proposals.

If you have questions that you would like answered on the Webinar, these can be emailed in advance of, or during the webinar, to [email protected] with the subject line "WEBINAR QUESTION".

You can view the webinar on May 9th via the JPND website (see direct link below).  If you miss the webinar, a recorded Youtube video will be made available on the same page after the webinar has ended.

JPND has launched a rapid action call for leading scientists in the field to establish working groups to enhance the use of existing longitudinal cohort studies for neurodegenerative disease research.

Current population and disease-focused cohorts offer a significant opportunity for advancing our understanding of the risks of developing neurodegenerative conditions and the influences on disease progression. Such cohorts also offer the prospect of providing platforms for prevention and intervention studies in the longer term.

As identified in the recently published report of the JPND Action Group on Longitudinal Cohort studies in ND research, a number of methodological challenges remain if such resources are to be fully exploited. The report also identified a number of areas where further thinking is specifically needed to provide the necessary consensus and framework to support future studies of impact for the field. These were:

  • assessing the presymptomatic stages of ND, where new methodological approaches, tools and measures are required.
  • the development of standards to support brain imaging, where guidelines are needed to frame future multimodal imaging approaches and perspectives in molecular imaging.
  • measurement of cognitive, behavioural and functional changes of relevance to ND progression and outcome , where a consensus on the methodologies to be used is needed.
  • data handling, where the emergence of ‚omics‘ technologies requires new approaches to data integration and the interrogation and accessibility of big data sets.
  • cohort alignment: in depth work is needed to identify where cohorts can be brought together in selected areas, with concurrent work on how data pooling can realistically be achieved.
  • clinical data linkage: an assessment is needed of how studies with clear clinical linkage might be exploited in prospective studies, such that study harmonisation might be achieved, with the identification of best practice for of data protection, storage and dissemination solutions.
  • the potential for exploiting intervention-studies of potential risk factors where ND is not the primary focus (eg. clinical trials in hypertension, diabetes etc), to ascertain how they could be used to adequately address risk of ND as an outcome.

JPND has decided that these issues can be progressed most effectively through assembling motivated groups of leading experts in the ND field. Accordingly community-led Working Groups are to be supported that can push forward the conceptualization of such topics in order to provide guidelines and/or best practice frameworks of value to the wider research community. Areas to be considered are highlighted above, although other topics that are similar in theme may be proposed.

Funds available and form of support

Up to €450,000 in total will be available to fund Working Groups under this call, with each Working Group able to bid up to €50,000 for support of its activities, which are expected to run for a maximum of 6 months. As the Working Groups will be expected to deliver reports of wide applicability to the field of ND research, only one activity will be funded in any topic area. Funding will cover the costs of meetings and travel required to deliver the Working Groups‘ objectives.

Participating JPND countries

This is a transnational call and Working Groups can be comprised of members of any JPND-member country and beyond. However, the lead-coordinator of the Working Group should be based in one of the following countries that are contributing to this call:

  • Denmark, Danish Strategic Research Council
  • France, French National Research Agency
  • Germany, Federal Ministry of Education and Research (pending final approval)
  • Italy, Ministry of Health
  • Luxemburg, National Research Fund
  • The Netherlands, The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development
  • Norway, The Research Council of Norway
  • Sweden, The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare
  • United Kingdom, Medical Research Council

Notes:

The proposal submission deadline for the call is 17:00 (GMT+1, Summer Time) on June 16th, 2014

More information on the call is available at:

https://www.neurodegenerationresearch.eu/initiatives/jpnd-alignment-actions/longitudinal-cohorts/call-for-working-groups  

Media enquiries should be directed to:

Derick Mitchell, [email protected], +353 1 2345103

The JPND Action Group on Animal and Cellular Models has published its report, providing an overview on the state-of-the-art of currently available models for neurodegeneration research across JPND countries.

A JPND Action Group was tasked with:

  • documenting the experimental models currently utilized for the study of specific neurodegenerative diseases and new therapies
  • identifying the shortcomings of the models currently available
  • identifying the need for novel models and lines of intervention

The report provides a broad panorama of the models currently available and a critical overview of their limitations, thereby suggesting lines of intervention within the reach of the JPND community that may include funding of competitive calls and organization of initiatives aimed at harmonizing research activities in this field.

Priorities for action will be set by the JPND Management Board for announcement in 2014.

The report can be downloaded at the link below: