European Federation of Associations of Families of People with Mental Illness

EUFAMI was founded in 1992 as an international non-profit organisation advocating better support to carers of people with mental illnesses.
We have an ongoing commitment to improving care and welfare for people affected by mental illness. We also enable our member organisations to act jointly at a European Level, combining their efforts and sharing experience.



European College of Neuropsycho-pharmacology

ECNP is an independent scientific association dedicated to the science and treatment of disorders of the brain. It is the largest non-institutional supporter of applied and translational neuroscience research and education in Europe.

ECNP organises a wide range of scientific and educational activities, programmes and events across Europe, promoting the exchange of high-quality experimental and clinical research in applied and translational neuroscience and fostering young scientists and clinicians.

The annual ECNP Congress is Europe’s premier scientific meeting for disease-oriented brain research, annually attracting between 4,000 and 6,000 neuroscientists, psychiatrists, neurologists and psychologists from around the world.



Erasmus University Medical Center

Erasmus Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam (EMC) is the academic hospital of the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands and home to the Erasmus University faculty of medicine. The largest university medical center in the Netherlands, EMC plays a key role in research, education and patient care in the Netherlands. Research at EMC combines its internationally acknowledged expertise in the fields of clinical sciences, health sciences and biomedical sciences. The Erasmus Medical Center ranks #1 among the top European institutions in clinical medicine and #20 in the world according to the Times Higher Education rankings.
The aim is to translate bench discoveries to bedside applications to daily community care. Research at the medical faculty is centred on the fields of Genetics, Health Sciences including Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Public Health, Cardiovascular disease, Neuroscience, Psychiatry. EMC has a leading position in these fields.
The proposed research will be conducted in the Department of Epidemiology at EMC. The Department of Epidemiology is responsible for training medical and postgraduate students at EMC in the principles of epidemiology. The Department of Epidemiology is one of the participating departments in the research school NIHES (Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences). The department is also home to the two large prospective cohort studies, the Rotterdam Study including almost 15,000 participants over 45 years of age and Generation R, including almost 10,000 children and their parents.
Research in the Department of Epidemiology focuses on cardiovascular disease epidemiology, epidemiology of neurological and psychiatric diseases and ophthalmologic diseases. In addition, research groups focus on genetic epidemiology, endocrinological epidemiology, pharmaco-epidemiology and on clinical epidemiology of radiological procedures.
The department has research consultancy facilities in clinical epidemiology and in biostatistics and extensive expertise in genetics, metabolomics and epidemiology and in large-scale population studies.



Leiden University Medical Center

The Department of Psychiatry is part of the Leiden Univeristy Medical Center. The LUMC is a modern center for research, education and patient care with a high profile and a strong scientific and international reputation. It’s unique research practice, ranging from pure fundamental medical research to applied clinical research, places LUMC among world leaders. The intensive collaboration between LUMC, Leiden University and the large Leiden Bio Science Park, with amongst others the Center for Human Drug Research (CHDR), creates unique possibilities for medical innovation. The LUMC department of psychiatry has specialised inpatient and outpatient clinics for mood and anxiety disorders and clinical and experimental research units. Research focusses on the treatment, phenomenology and neurobiology of disorders of emotion regulation and their interactions over the lifespan. In 2014 the department of psychiatry published 80% of its papers in a top 25% journal. As described in more detail below, the department and its close collaborators have ample experience in conducting clinical studies and cohort studies with extensive phenotypical and neurobiological assessments. This fits well with the main tasks foreseen for the LUMC in the PRISM proposal:
In 2002, the Leiden University Medical Center and the large regional Mental Health Provider Rivierduinen have implemented Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) in routine clinical care for patients with Mood, Anxiety and Somatoform disorders. In the Leiden ROM project, extensive baseline assessments (comprising a standardized diagnostic interview, administration of rating scales and several self-reported measures, covering symptomatology, functioning etc) are performed in 80% of all intakes, with follow-up assessments in those starting treatment. Dedicated Web-based software has been developed to assist in this task.The collected data are used in scientific analyses, measurement of the quality of care, and benchmarking. Research with ROM data encompasses psychometrics, epidemiology, phenotyping, neurobiology and genotyping (MASH cohort), and treatment efficiency. Furthermore, the ROM infrastructure can be used for patient selection. Baseline data and follow-up data of over 10,000 patients are available. We have extended ROM and the MASH bank by including a cohort of 1,300 subjects from the general population.
Since 2004, the department is also one of the three main assessment and recruitment centers for the large 10-year longitudinal NESDA study (Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, www.nesda.nl). NESDA combines extensive phenotyping of 2896 subjects with neurobiological and physiological assessments, including genetic profiling, neuropsychological testing and MRI. The department is also a main assessment and recruitment center for several comparable multi-center cohort studies, such as the Netherlands Study on Depression in Old age (NESDO) and the Netherlands Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Association Study (NOCDA).
The department is actively involved in the interfaculty Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC, see www.libc-leiden.nl) and in the multidisciplinary LUMC Leiden Center for Translational Neuroscience (LCTN). The LIBC and LCTN provide an excellent infrastructure and expertise in MRI and EEG, and in basic and clinical neuroscience approaches. Furthermore, close collaboration with the CHDR (Center for Human Drug Research) via Prof. van Gerven, research director CNS at the CHDR and research staff member at our department adds to expertise in designing and conducting clinical trials.
The Leiden University Medical Center’s (LUMC) Department of Psychiatry will 1) participate with cohorts of well characterized patients in the data mining based on available clinical proxies for social withdrawal, sensory processing and attention (WP 2 and 5), 2) serve as a ‘deep phenotyping’ site (WP 4) and 3) as a potential clinical centre for the use and involvement in regulatory discussions on PRISM developed biomarkers (WP7).



SBGneuro Ltd

SBGneuro provides expertise in the acquisition, quality control, analysis and interpretation of MR-based neuorimaging data as an outcome measure in clinical trials.

We are committed to developing and applying the very best methodology, to enable functional and structural MRI to fulfil its rich potential as a powerful, non-invasive biomarker for a wide range of diseases and disease treatments. By measuring and comparing many aspects of brain function, we believe that we can obtain objective, sensitive information that can be a valuable complement to existing methods for investigating neuropsychiatric disease and potential treatments. By bringing together leading researchers in this field, we apply the very best science to this important clinical tool.



University of Exeter

The University of Exeter Medical School (UEMS) provides a world-class research environment for clinical genomics research. It has recently invested >£100 million to further enhance its facilities and capacity in functional genomics. The Complex Disease (Epi)genomics Group is based at the Wellcome Wolfson Medical Research Centre (opened December 2013), a new £28 million facility that brings together key clinical and biomedical scientists working in genomics, cell biology, neuroscience and human physiology. The University of Exeter Medical School is improving the health of the South West and beyond, through the development of high quality graduates and world-leading research that has international impact. As part of a Russell Group university, we combine this world-class research with very high levels of student satisfaction. The University of Exeter Medical School’s Medicine programme is ranked 11th in the Guardian University Guide 2016. Exeter has over 19,000 students and is one of the global top 100 universities according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-16, positioned 93rd. Exeter is also ranked 7th in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016, 9th in the Guardian University Guide 2016 and 10th in The Complete University Guide 2016. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), the University ranked 16th nationally, with 98% of its research rated as being of international quality. Exeter’s Clinical Medicine research was ranked 3rd in the country, based on research outputs that were rated world-leading. Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care research also ranked in the top ten, in joint 9th for research outputs rated world-leading or internationally excellent. Exeter was named The Times and The Sunday Times Sports University of the Year 2015-16, in recognition of excellence in performance, education and research. Exeter was The Sunday Times University of the Year 2012-13.



Drug Target ID

Drug Target ID (DTID), Ltd., was founded as a spin-out company of the Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands and is an SME that is specialized in large-scale, genome-wide (genetic and expression) data analysis, integration and interpretation. More specifically, DTID has pioneered a unique and highly innovative approach to build molecular landscapes for complex genetic disorders in order to provide insights into the biological processes underlying these disorders and to reveal novel, disorder-specific diagnostic biomarkers and drug targets (website: www.drugtargetid.com). Our unbiased ‘molecular landscape building approach’ involves the application of gene enrichment and protein-protein interaction tools as well as extensive, thorough and time-intensive systematic literature evaluations to/of the top-ranked genes that have been identified through several types of genetic, epigenetic and expression studies as well as studies on (genetic) animal models and pharmacological/pharmacogenetic studies, and that have been ranked and weighted using statistical approaches.

Thus far, we have successfully built molecular landscapes for a number of complex genetic diseases, including the neurodevelopmental disorders attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), dyslexia, motor coordination problems, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and the neurological diseases Alzheimer’s disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s disease (HD), multiple sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Furthermore, we have applied the approach to complex non-neurological disorders, such as acute lymphatic leukemia (ALL), breast cancer, congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT), cleft lip/palate (CL/P) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP). In principle, our ‘molecular landscape building approach’ is applicable to any complex genetic disease for which big (genetic) data are available. We are currently building molecular landscapes for several disorders including aggression/conduct disorder, myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) and Tourette syndrome (TS) (as a part of the EU-funded projects MATRICS, OPTIMISTIC and TS-EUROTRAIN), bipolar disorder (BPD) and schizophrenia (SZ).

Within the PRISM project, Dr. Klemann will use the molecular landscape building approach – under supervision of Dr. Poelmans and Professor Martens – to pinpoint the most clinically relevant molecular and biological processes underlying high social withdrawal (and associated) cognitive deficits, symptoms shared by the three disorders that will be studied, i.e. SZ, major depressive disorder (MD) and AD, and based on available/literature-derived, to-be-processes and to-be-generated (genome-wide) genetic, epigenetic and expression data. The insights about the biological substrates for high social withdrawal and cognitive deficits derived from the built landscape will then be used to inform and guide subsequent work packages of PRISM, including the creation and phenotypic testing of genetic mouse models of selected key landscape genes.



Biotrial

Founded in 1989, Biotrial is a leading CRO with extensive experience in conducting Non-Clinical and Clinical Studies from Phase I through to Phase IV for a global client base of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Based in France, the UK, Canada and the USA, with 350 employees and 300 beds, Biotrial performs hundreds of studies each year and offers tailor-made solutions.
Available as stand-alone or full packages, Biotrial’s services include:
– Non-Clinical Pharmacology
– Regulatory Affairs
– Phase I Clinical Pharmacology Trials
– Data Management, Biostatistics and Medical Writing
– Management Phase II to IV Patient Trials
– Monitoring
– Core Lab services (ECG & EEG over-reading)
– Bioanalytical services
– Oncology studies (Non-Clinical & Clinical)
– Pharmacovigilance

Biotrial has broad experience in CNS drug evaluation and has conducted many different trials involving full assessments of psychoactive properties of compounds. The Biotrial EEG Core Lab services can be used in any clinical setting throughout the drug development process, from Non-Clinical to First-in-Human trials through global Phase II, III & IV trials.



University of Bologna

The Psychiatry Section of the Department of Biomedical and NeuroMotor Sciences is part of the University of Bologna. Clinical facilities are implemented within the Section. The clinical section comprises approximately 24 psychiatric beds, in addition to an Outpatients Unit covering the Bologna area. Residents and post docs work within this environment performing both clinical and research activities. The Section is involved in a number of international and national collaborations which produce an average of 40 papers per year published in high Impact Factor journals (H-Index of the PI = 66). The scientific activity is supported by national and international grants which total over one million Euro over the last 5 years.



Spanish Mental Health Network

The CIBERSAM is a cooperative networking structure formed by 24 groups located in some of the most important main research in Spain and the Gregorio Marañón General Hospital of Madrid (HGUGM) is the largest university hospital in Spain. The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department at the HGUMG, headed by Dr. Celso Arango and one of the groups of CIBERSAM (Group 001), has extensive experience conducting both private and non-profit clinical trials and research projects in affective disorders, psychosis, and autism. Researchers from Gregorio Marañón General Hospital have long been conducting research on psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents. Among others, they have been participating in several studies of children and adolescents with psychosis, autism spectrum disorder, and affective disorders. They have conducted research in areas including clinical, neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and genetic evaluations, with high research standards in all domains, corroborated by scientific publication of their findings in high impact journals. The Department is composed by 12 clinicians (part-time) and 20 research fellows (full-time dedicated to research), trained on clinical and cognitive assessments in neurodevelopmental disorders.