DIRECT (DIabetes REsearCh on patient straTification) is a consortium looking at personalized medicine for type 2 diabetes. The aims of the consortium are to identify biomarkers that address current bottlenecks in diabetes drug development and to develop a stratified medicines approach to the treatment of type 2 diabetes with either existing or novel therapies.
The consortium consists of 25 European partners, with seven interrelated research work packages, covering phenotype generation and provision, data generation and analysis, validation and assay development and validation through prospective clinical trials.
Jane Kaye, Karen Melham and Harriet Teare are the HeLEX researchers working on this project, and will be responsible for identifying, addressing and resolving ethical, legal and regulatory issues that emerge as the scientific work programmes develop and to ensure the development of best practice. Part of this work will focus in particular on patient engagement.
The DIRECT project started in January 2012 and will run for 7 years. The project is supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), which is part of the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
The project partners are:
Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH
Eli Lilly and Company Ltd.
University of Dundee
University of Bath
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Technical University of Denmark
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Helmholtz Zentrum München - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt GmbH
Consorci Institut D`Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer
Imperial College London
Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
University of Lille – CNRS
Leiden University Medical Center
University of Copenhagen
University of Eastern Finland
Lunds Universitet
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
University of Exeter
University of Gèneve
University of Oxford
Universität Ulm
VU University Medical Center Amsterdam
Novo Nordisk A/S
Servier
Lille University Hospital
