Our Platform
EPND will create and maintain a platform where researchers can discover, analyse, and visualise neurodegenerative disease data they would have otherwise been unable to access.
The EPND platform will be built on four major components to provide a complete system for data and biosample storage, analysis, and protection.
EPND will create and govern a central location for accessing, storing, and analysing neurodegenerative disease data.
EPND will evaluate existing data sharing and harmonisation processes to ensure interoperability between datasets.
EPND will cultivate a culture of best practices surrounding collection, storage, and sample management within the platform.
The EPND platform will enable users to contribute and discover datasets and resources, find and request access to biosamples, identify collaborators, and access tools and resources for analysis.
The EPND Consortium partners will build and establish the platform network over the next five years in several stages:
November 2021:
EPND program established
Formal funding and establishment of EPND Consortium
July 2022:
EPND environment online
Connection starting with EPND partner cohort catalogues
Spetember 2022:
Initial research results uploaded
Results from initial case study discoverable within EPND
October 2022:
Intial white paper and sustainability plan available
Availability of ethical, governance and operational requirements for responsible and sustainable platform design
November 2023:
Cohorts discoverable at resource-level
Users can search and request access across datasets from cohorts made available through EPND partners
Publicly launched in 2020, the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative’s AD Workbench is a platform that provides infrastructure for free data sharing, data science tools, and global collaboration opportunities for the acceleration of neurodegenerative disease research. EPND will function as the European node within this global data sharing community, contributing to the collective goal of advancing scientific breakthroughs and accelerating progress.
The AD Workbench facilitates research and sharing on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The initiative is guided by three main principles: increasing data sharing, easing data access, and developing new tools and analytics for researchers to use and share. Users can search, analyse, and manage existing datasets; save their work; upload and share new datasets and code; and allocate their workload to a virtual machine — capabilities that will all be made available to the EPND network.
To forge a new path for neurodegenerative disease research, researchers and the medical community will need the best information possible. That’s why EPND will implement FAIR data practices, based on principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. FAIR practices will be adopted across every part of the initiative and will support discovery of datasets via the AD Workbench’s Fair Search functionality.