Aims of the Research Unit 'National Cohort'
The first priority of the Research Group National Cohort which was established in 2009 is to proceed in the planning and pretesting for the preparation of a large national prospective cohort study in Germany, currently called "National Cohort".
Up to now, important milestones were the successful application for the establishment of a recruitment centre as well as the application for funding of the Universities and a series of specific feasibility studies. Recently, a full study protocol for the first ten years of the National Cohort was submitted for international review, including a 5-years recruitment phase and 5-years re-assessment phase. The hearing was scheduled for end of April 2011. After successful conduct of the feasibility studies and a main pilot study, recruitment of the participants of the National Cohort will start.
In Cooperation with other scientists from HMGU and outside the main aims are:
- Planning of the National Cohort
- Steering of the project management group of the National Cohort
- Conduct of the local feasibility studies
- Setup of the local part of the cohort with 20,000 participants in the areas Augsburg city/Augsburg county/county Aichach-Friedberg.
Scientific work of the research group in the area of "diet, lifestyle, metabolism and risk of chronic diseases" will be fostered as soon as the preparatory work during the planning phase of the National Cohort is completed. Scientific activities are planned in the following areas:
- Nutritional, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors in the aetiology of selected chronic diseases
- Identification of gene-environment (diet) interactions with impact on metabolism and human health and disease
- Use of metabolites in bio-specimens as objective markers of diet, lifestyle and metabolism for research on risk factors/protective factors in the development of chronic diseases
- Personalized prevention of (metabolic) diseases through targeted modification of diet and lifestyle.