Global network,
five cores
Connecting 60+ sites across six continents
Worldwide collaboration, united for progress in Parkinson’s research
The GEoPD consortium unites researchers from over 60 sites worldwide to advance education, research, and translation in Parkinson’s disease. Organized into five cores, GEoPD fosters collaboration by sharing expertise and resources, supporting joint research projects, and connecting members through annual meetings.
The Biology core is to compile a resource of expertise, resources and reagents within the GEoPD Consortium. Its objectives are to facilitate research by members of the GEoPD Consortium and to encourage multi-site collaborations.
The Epidemiology and Statistics core is to maintain a list of epidemiologic data available at different GEoPD sites. It will serve to facilitate data harmonization across sites.
It will monitor the epidemiological literature, with a particular interest in gene-environment interactions, and will regularly provide updates on recent findings. It will also monitor the statistical literature for relevant methods that can be used within the Consortium.
Members of the consortium will also be able to consult the core for questions on study design, analysis, and presentation of results.
Core Leaders: Alexis Elbaz, George Mellick, Karin Wirdefeldt
The Communications core is to maintain a list of active members and their contact details. It is to explicitly enable effective correspondence between sites/individuals and Cores, by whatever means is most effective, currently email, list serves and more recently via shared folders on dropbox.
Website development is a Core activity to enable direct communication between members to facilitate projects and the exchange of information and resources. The Communications core will aim to provide an archive of past dialogues within projects and cores. It will also seek to archive data from past meetings, including their program and event photographs.
Core Leaders: Matthew Farrer, Christine Klein, Rejko Krüger
The Genomics/Data Science core will integrate, disseminate, store and archive data generated by different GEoPD sites.
Part of our objective is to develop a standardized analytical pipeline to seamlessly perform downstream genomic analyses, to use either next-generation sequencing data (exome, genome, resequencing) or candidate SNP data generated via different genotyping platforms. However, the Bioinformatics/Genomics core also serves to integrate data generated by different cores (i.e. Epidemiology core, Clinical core, Biology core) with raw genomic data. As such the Core will be responsible for developing and managing a “GEoPD database”, containing genomic data accessible to GEoPD members.
The Genomics/Data Science broader mission is to help GEoPD investigators perform novel, multi-dimensional, clinico-genetic-epidemiological studies.
Core Leaders: Manu Sharma
The Clinical Core will establish a basic clinical database for all patients/controls in the Consortium in an advanced database built using REDCap software. It integrates our long term project the LONG-PD study (PI: Katerina Markopoulou) that includes data from longitudinal follow-up of patients with parkinsonism.
The objectives of the Clinical Core are also to provide a standard dataset of basic clinical assessments that can be used by each site, using site-specific access, in a web-based REDCap system. This will facilitate future data sharing in upcoming projects within the Consortium.
The clinical database will not only comprise data on idiopathic Parkinson’s disease but also other forms of neurodegenerative parkinsonism, i.e. PSP, MSA, CBS. The database will also be built to capture and allow analyses of therapeutic outcomes, to integrate information on pharmacological treatment and device-based interventions i.e. deep brain stimulation (DBS) or pumps (LCIG, apomorphine).
It will be the Clinical Core’s responsibility (i) to create a basic dataset, that is harmonized based on current state-of-the-art diagnostic criteria and clinical scores, and (ii) to maintain a comprehensive, regularly updated searchable database of clinical data for the Consortium in collaboration with the Bioinformatics Core.
Core Leaders: Rejko Krüger, Beom Jeon, Katerina Markopoulou
We truly appreciate your support in advancing PD research outreach and developing more effective treatment strategies.
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