Page 105 - Memora anual Fundación CIEN 2017
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5. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
with the invaluable drive and personal interest of strengthen and extend existing capabilities across
Queen Sofia. In this context, in recent years CIEN the full spectrum of basic, clinical, health and social
Foundation together with the Network Center for care, and translational research. To that end, a num-
Biomedical Research in Neurodegenerative Disea- ber of priority areas for future research have been
ses (CIBERNED, for its acronym in Spanish) has given identified: The origins of neurodegenerative disea-
a boost to its relations with international organiza- ses; Disease mechanisms and models; Disease defi-
tions in the area of research in neurodegenerative nition and diagnosis; Treatment and prevention;
diseases such as the EU Joint Programme for Rese- Health and social care.
arch in Neurodegenerative Diseases (JPND) and the
Network of Centers of Excellence in Neurodegene- This Research Strategy also provides a framework of
ration (COEN), among other initiatives. These and opportunities for countries involved in JPND and wi-
other internationalization activities carried out during lling to participate in joint actions, which will be im-
2016 by CIEN Foundation are detailed below. plemented through co-operative activities that
realign or link national investments to achieve incre-
▄▀ 5.2. EU Joint Programming on ased impact, and the provision of new funding. A
Neurodegenerative Disease guiding principle for its delivery will be that the rese-
Research (JPND) arch to be supported is of the highest scientific qua-
lity.
The EU Joint Programming for Research in Neurode- In this regard, during 2011 took place the first call for
generative Diseases (JPND) is an innovative colla- European research projects JPND. Under the theme
borative research initiative created to address the "Optimization of biomarkers and harmonization of
growing challenges posed by these disorders. The their use in the clinic", four transnational projects
JPND is a pioneering example of joint programming were awarded for the period 2012-2015, one of
for the promotion of research within the European which has the participation of CIEN Foundation: the
Union aimed at scientific challenges requiring a res- DEMTEST project on “Biomarker based diagnosis of
ponse that exceeds the capacity of a single rapid progressive dementias-optimization of diag-
country, based on the alignment of national rese- nostic protocols”. At present, the CIEN Foundation
arch programs devoted to these challenges. Its ob- participates and will continue to participate actively
jective is to enhance the impact of research by in the JPND.
aligning existing national research programs and the
identification of common objectives whose scope ▄▀ 5.3. Network of Centers of Excellence
would benefit from joint action. in Neurodegeneration (COEN)
The Research Strategy designed by JPND provides a A major obstacle to the advancement of research
framework for future investments and shows that the on neurodegenerative diseases is the relative lack of
research effort within the European Union can be le- common standards and mechanisms for validation
veraged to improve care on prevention, diagnosis and of potentially relevant results in preclinical studies,
treatment of patients suffering from these diseases. and clinical studies based on population. One ap-
proach to deal with these challenges on a large
To achieve impact there is a need to encourage scale is through a more effective use of large centers
novel as well as multidisciplinary approaches, and to
CIEN Foundation Annual Report 2017 / 105
