In June 2010, scientists from the DZNE, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Medical Research Council (MRC, UK) launched “Centers of Excellence in Neurodegeneration” (COEN). From now on, the initiative has its own website. Further information about the initiative and its partners can be found on www.coen.org.
COEN is a collaborative initiative to create a new framework for conducting international research in the field of neurodegenerative disorders. The goal of the network is to identify scientific questions that are key to the advancement of the field and to review and fund respective research projects. In addition, COEN will attract investment from industry and other partners and provide a platform for high quality training. The “Centers of Excellence” are research institutions defined by the funding partners. Besides the founding members, three further funding partners have joined the initiative in October last year: the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB Flanders, Belgium), the Health Research Board (Ireland), and the Ministry of Health (Italy).
A primary goal of the COEN initiative will be to fund cooperative research projects between the participating excellence centres aimed to study new animal models and biomarkers, and common brain imaging methodologies and clinical outcome measures.
Additional information about COEN, the results of the workshops and calls for proposals is available at www.coen.org.