From April, ALSPACs scientific director, Professor George Davey Smith, who leads on scientific innovation, will be joined by co-PI, Professor Paul Burton, who will be responsible for cohort infrastructure.
This five-year funding stream will:
- support research and lab infrastructure, ensuring researchers have access to data and samples for their own research
- sustain cohort maintenance, ensuring as many participants as possible continue to take part in the study
- enable new data collection on the original study children (and their children) via clinical assessment at age 24/5 and two questionnaires
- allow for the consolidation of genetic data by genotyping all study participants
- support the data linkage programme
ALSPACs executive director, Lynn Molloy, said:
We are very pleased to have secured this level of funding in the current tough economic climate. We are already busy working with our collaborators in the UK and abroad, planning the next clinic for the original study children in 2015-16.