JPND JTC call 2024: EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research

The EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) is launching a transnational call on mechanisms and measurement of disease progression in the early phase of neurodegenerative diseases.

The JPND, which aims to support transnational collaboration on neurodegenerative disease research, is launching a call for proposals on "Mechanisms and measurement of disease progression in the early phase of neurodegenerative diseases".

This joint transnational call is aimed at better understanding the disease mechanisms and advancing measurability of disease progression at early and pre-symptomatic stages of neurodegenerative diseases.

Proposals submitted under this call may include, but are not limited to, the following types of research:

  • Unravelling the influence of molecular, physiological, psychological and social factors and pathways on disease progression as well as discovering new factors and pathways;
  • Defining key regulatory steps affecting the disease onset and progression;
  • Combining molecular, psychological, social and physiological markers in order to increase the robustness of the diagnosis;
  • Harmonisation of the use of novel technologies and clinical measures to increase reliability and reproducibility of disease detection and monitoring;
  • Identifying molecular, environmental, social and behavioral modulators of disease progression with the ultimate aim of determining risk, protective and resilience factors;
  • Examining pathological processes related to neurodegeneration by using artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to understand the role of mechanistic pathways;
  • Enhancing patient stratification by establishing measures and technologies to characterise clinical subgroups at pre-symptomatic stages, e.g. ‘risk phenotypes’ or ‘at-risk’ groups;
  • Identifying compensatory mechanisms associated to early stages of neurodegenerative diseases;
  • Systematically analysing the influence of genetic, epigenetic and phenotypic variability underlying neurodegenerative diseases on disease progression.

The neurodegenerative diseases addressed by the call are Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Parkinson’s disease and PD-related disorders, prion diseases, motor neuron diseases, Huntington’s disease, spinocerebellar ataxia and spinal muscular atrophy.

Pre-proposals must be submitted no later than 12:00 (noon) CET on 5 March 2024 via the electronic submission tool.

Full proposals must be submitted no later than 12:00 (noon) CEST on 25 June 2024 via the electronic submission tool.