Our objective is to create within the Community the conditions for emergence of novel therapeutic approaches to neurodegenerative disease and neurotrauma, which represent an urgent socio-economic and human need. The NeuroNE consortium (22 academic groups, 6 SMEs and 1 management partner in 9 different countries) will take a multi-disciplinary (functional genomics and proteomics, physiology, chemistry, clinical studies) and multi-faceted (disease mechanisms, biology of cell death and survival, regeneration mechanisms, high-throughput screening, gene- and cell-based therapies) approach to this problem. Among the neurodegenerative diseases, we will focus on Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), Huntington's disease (HD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Spinal cord injury (SCI) will be the main model for neurotrauma. NeuroNE brings together investigators from different backgrounds (basic scientists, active clinicians and therapeutically -oriented SMEs) to work at all levels on a given disease: post-genomic science, molecular and cell biology, animal models, therapeutic strategies and clinical studies. Professional project management will provide efficient integration, realization of scientific objectives and knowledge management. Common infrastructures include shared NeuroNE-funded core facilities in 7 centres, while our web-based database will serve as a European depository for biological research tools. Training will be provided at several levels: by a competitive program of multi- centre postdoctoral fellowships, by mobility of NeuroNE scientists to other centres and platforms, and by the organization of summer schools and laboratory open days. To feed back the benefits of integration into EU society, we have involved patient organizations from the start, identified associated research groups who will benefit immediately from our infrastructures, and opened network meetings to identified scientists from emerging research centres.
Keywords:
Degeneration, Regeneration
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