Monday 27th of March the researchers performing analyses on the Project MinE data met in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They discussed the methods of all ongoing analyses with the Project MinE data.

International collaboration

Fifty researchers from UK, USA, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switserland, Turkey, France and the Netherlands met at the Hilton at airport Schiphol. Research partners from Australia and Israel were welcomed via video conference.

Analyses discussed

More than one third of the needed DNA profiles have now been analysed with whole genome sequencing (reading every letter of the DNA). This is a lot of raw data ready to be searched through even more thoroughly. Therefore, it is now time to speed up the joined analyses of all this data. The researchers discussed the methods and data handling for this largest genetic ALS project ever.

Project MinE working groups

Working groups of researchers from around the world were established to continue the international collaborative work on:

• Working Group 1 – Phenotyping (studying variations in disease progress and associations with genetics)
  Chair: Matthieu Moisse, Belgium
• Working Group 2 – Gene burden Case-Controls (comparisons of DNA of patients and healthy controls)
  Chair: Sara Pulit, the Netherlands
• Working Group 3 – Epigenetic data (methylation)
  Chair: Jonathan Mill, UK
• Working Group 4 – Data infrastructure
  Chair: Alfredo Iacoangeli, UK
• Working Group 5 – Repeat expansions (repeated elements as mutation in ALS-genes)
  Chair: Joke van Vugt, the Netherlands

The working groups will report to the Project MinE consortium twice a year at the Project MinE meetings during the ENCALS conference in May and the ALS/ MND symposium in December.