Collaboration with other groups

EU-AIMS has different collaborations which other groups:

  • EMA: To ensure that our thinking is consistent with the requirements of EMA, we have a very close collaboration with EMA. The EMA has published the letters of support on the LEAP biomarker qualification advice on their website (December 2015).
  • Autism Spectrum Disorders in the European Union (ASDEU): Autism Spectrum Disorders in Europe is a new, trans-European programme involving university, charities and expert institutions to increase understanding of autism. Coordination between EU-AIMS and ASDEU is of added value by disseminating research findings to a large audience and share newsletters and project updates to boost communication. We are also working to align database procedures of the EU-AIMS data pooling initiative (EU-AIMS Clinical Network Newsletter) with the “ASDEU prevalence study database” in order to allow comprehensive capture, coordination  and standardisation of information.
  • European Babysibs Autism Research Network (Eurosibs) is a consortium of researchers who are studying infants with risk factors fro developmental disorders in Europe. The goal is to facilitate the implementation of a common protocol of standardised and experimental measures.
  • Autism Speaks: We have formed a highly innovative partnership with Autism Speaks. They bring both scientific expertise, and funding, to help us develop a Bioresource that links with other international initiatives (e.g. the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE)) and will underpin Europe’s leading role in the development of novel treatments for ASD.
  • Ghent University: EU-AIMS has a close collaboration with the Ghent University, Department of Experimental clinical and health psychology, Prof. Dr. Roeyers. Ghent will be contributing data collected from common Eurosibs protocol to the common EU AIMS database. Ghent will also be accessing infant data from the EU AIMS database. The major goal is to maximise the sample size for Eurosibs, and also access the considerable expertise of the Ghent team in social interaction and other risk samples (e.g. premature infants, ADHD).
  • Sylics is a preclinical CRO specialized in behavioural neuroscience, including in vivo efficacy studies for neurological and psychiatric diseases, among which autism. They have an extensive history with mouse models of various human condition, including breeding and genotyping of mice, setting up new behavioural tests to assess cognitive function, behavioural phenotyping of new models, optimization of therapies, and efficacy studies in mouse models. Sylic's Bioinformatics department offers cloud-based analysis tools for users of automated home-cages, like PhenoTypers. Raw tracking data is automatically processed, quality-checked and analyzed by our cloud-based analysis software AHCODA™. Within 24 hours, all relevant parameters are visualized on a private website, with publish-ready art and statistics.Sylics is looking forward to contribute their expertise to the EU-AIMS Consortium in terms of across-site PhenoTyper data storage and analyses tools. Behavioral data collected during the Shank2 multi-site study will initially be analyzed by the partners with EthoVision software from Noldus IT, and subsequently by Sylics, whose AHCODA software has functions that go beyond EthoVision’s capabilities. The data will be stored in a database for joint access and use by the WP2 partners, which has very specific behavior-related functionality and thus complements the EU-AIMS database developed in WP5.