On January 9th, Barcelona hosted the first National Leads & ExCom meeting of the year. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the EPAD LCS recruitment status and needs for the proof of concept study, as well as to set up a contingency program and to ensure the sustainability of the longitudinal cohort.
EPAD has two main goals this year, announced Serge Van der Geyten, EPAD project coordinator: to increase the number of sites and to start the interventional study. The European Consortium has begun 2018 with 10 sites enrolling participants, but the recruitment will be boosted by the incorporation of 20-25 new sites by summer. This recruitment will lead to the start of the interventional study by October/November.
In a video interview during the meeting, Miia Kivipelto, professor of Clinical Geriatrics at the Karolinska Institutet, also mentioned the launch of the EPAD Academy, which will contribute to stimulate an academic environment and to encourage young researchers to put some efforts on Alzheimer’s research.
Finally, Philip Scheltens, professor of Neurology at the VUmc Amsterdam, recognized that “as with every project, it takes time in order to get things started”. Despite the “slow” start of the project, due to the ethical committees’ processes and regulations, he concluded that “now we are on the right track and we need to prove that we can do it!”.
Watch the short interviews here.