Scientific Concept of the National Cohort (status ... - Nationale Kohorte

C.1
C.1 Annex: Description of the study centers
Description of the institution responsible for establishing and operating the study
center
The Charité – university medical Center Berlin is one of the largest university clinics in
Europe. Scientists and physicians engage in state-of-the-art research, patient care, and education
at this institution. More than half of the German Nobel laureates in medicine and physiology
come from the Charité, among them Emil von Behring, Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich.
The Charité also has an international reputation for excellence in training. It extends over
four campuses with more than 100 clinics and institutes bundled under 17 CharitéCenters.
The Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Economics is the largest institute
at the CharitéCenter 1 for Health and Human Sciences. The institute initiated and
coordinated a number of large prospective outpatient-population cohort studies, including
the ORBITAL Study (Open Label Primary Care Study of Rosuvastatin-based Compliance
Initiatives to Achievement of LDL Goal) on secondary prevention of CVD with over 8,000
patients that were recruited and followed nationwide and followed up for 5 years, and the
Acute Stroke Care Study (n= 1094, Competence Net Stroke), which aimed to improve the
care of patients with acute stroke in the Berlin inner city districts. Moreover, the Institute has
been involved in several large prospective birth cohort studies on chronic respiratory and
allergic disorders, such as coordination of the 20-year follow-up of the Multi-center Allergy
Study (MAS, n=1,300), the first German birth cohort study on the development of atopic
diseases from childhood to adulthood, and the EuroPrevall birth cohort study (nine countries,
n=12,500) investigating lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors of food allergy
(EU FP6). Furthermore, the institute has been coordinating a collaboration of more than 20
ongoing European birth cohorts as part of the EU Network of Excellence GA2LEN (Global
Allergy and Asthma European Network) and is currently organizing a harmonized follow-up
assessment among the older European birth cohorts that reached adolescence (MeDALL,
EU FP7). In 2007 the Institute established the Charité Ambulanz für Prävention und Integrative
Medizin (CHAMP). CHAMP is designed as a research health care center in the fields
of prevention and integrative medicine that aims to bridge the gap between science and
practice and between traditional and alternative medicine.
The Center for Stroke Research Berlin (CSB) was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education
and Research as an integrated research and treatment center. The CSB investigators
have extensive experience in determining subclinical and clinical vascular disease phenotypes,
designing and coordinating prospective hospital- and population-based stroke registries,
performing large patient cohort studies, and combining large data-sets (e.g., German
Stroke Register Study Group, prospective CSB cohort, EU FP7 funded European Implementation
Score Collaboration). The CSB performs investigator-initiated stroke trials based
on their discoveries (e.g., PANTHERIS) and is also coordinating a number of nationally and
internationally recognized scientific stroke programs (e.g., EU FP7 funded ARISE network
performing biomarker studies). Standards have been developed and validated for the determination
of blood pressure, hematological, biochemical, and immunological studies, as well
as the whole range of subclinical and clinical vascular disease phenotypes including access
to advanced clinical diagnostic facilities (e.g., brain and vascular imaging). As mentioned
above, Charité and MDC have jointly established the Experimental and Clinical Research
Center (ECRC), as a platform for translational medical research, and, in addition, together
with MDC, DIfE, and RKI the epidemiologic research network for the metropolitan area
Berlin-Brandenburg (EPI2B) to support the National Cohort.
As part of the planning phase, scientists were actively engaged in several of the working
groups that provided detailed suggestions for scientific approaches and protocols for the
most important chronic diseases to be addressed within the National Cohort. The Charité
will establish and operate the study center Berlin-Center.
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