Pre-Announcement: JPND JTC Call 2021 - EU Joint Programme Neurodegenerative Disease Research
The EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND): joint will launch a transnational call on linking pre-diagnosis disturbances of physiological systems to neurodegenerative diseases.
The JPND, which aims to support transnational collaboration on neurodegenerative disease research, is launching a call for proposals on "Linking pre-diagnosis disturbances of physiological systems to Neurodegenerative Diseases".
This joint transnational call will promote research aiming at the detection, measurement and understanding of early disease indicators related to neurodegenerative diseases, with potential for the development of new diagnostics or interventions.
Proposals submitted under this call may include, but are not limited to, the following types of research:
- Demonstrating the relationship between early neurodegenerative processes and physiological disturbances, e.g. by analysing existing cohorts and longitudinal data.
- Applying cutting-edge methods or technologies to improve the detection of early symptoms, e.g. by establishing innovative biomarkers and increasing the sensitivity, specificity and/or the robustness of the readouts.
- Human or animal studies to decipher the neurodegeneration-derived processes causing early disease-specific signatures, e.g. at the neuropathological, cellular, synaptic, metabolic or inflammatory level. The use of well-characterised human cohorts’ data is encouraged.
- Using digital technologies to link recognisable symptoms to physiological changes associated to neurodegeneration, e.g. by combining clinical, neurophysiological, biochemical, imaging and psychological data.
- Relating prognostic signs of disease with real-life measurement of physiological disturbances using home-monitoring and/or wearable devices, including wireless sensors for patient monitoring.
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.
This will be a two-step call, expected to be launched in early January 2021, with a likely pre-proposal submission deadline in early March 2021. Further details will be provided on the JPND website when the call is launched.