Good news: a grant proposal to continue EuroGentest has been favourably evaluated by the European Commission

In November 2009, we filed an application for a project that would allow us to continue the activities of EuroGentest, or to at least maintain the network.

Indeed, we believe that EuroGentest has delivered a lot in terms of supporting laboratories and genetic clinics towards improvement of quality in genetic testing, and that within the 5 years of its existence, it has created a momentum that should not be stopped. Some people call EuroGentest a brand or trademark, it seems as if it has always been there and it should certainly not disappear.

The new project was named EuroGentest2 (or EUGT2) - because we were obliged to give it a new name and acronym. But the brand name will always be EuroGentest. The topic in the Seventh Framework call of the European Commission, to which the project was submitted, was tailored to our needs: "Harmonization, validation and standardisation in genetic testing" (HEALTH 2010.1.2-3).

Our application received an excellent score: 14/15, not bad. By the end of March 2010, we received notice that we could proceed with the contract preparations.
The call was for a Coordination Action, and hence, the budget was limited to 2.000.000 EUR for a period of 36 months.

The focus will still be on quality assurance of genetic practice, including different types of training, and the realm will also include prenatal diagnosis (PD), pre-implantation diagnosis (PGD) and non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD). Points of interest will be: External Quality Assessment (EQA) and the harmonization thereof, the validation of novel technologies and mainly the coordination thereof, and the generation of ‘Clinical Utility Gene Cards', which is a major endeavour indeed. Attention will be paid to Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) testing - a feature which was very much appreciated by the reviewers - and to the recast of the In Vitro Diagnostic (IVD) Directive. In general, EuroGentest wants to actively participate in different types of workgroups, and, in close collaboration with the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG), weigh on international decisions with regard to genetic testing. A specific, new workpackage will coordinate all policy activities.

The plan to create a EuroGentest foundation, which should warrant the sustainability of the network after the granting period, was applauded by reviewers, and we hope that it will be welcomed by the genetics community as well. It is not going to be another professional body, but rather a network or association of genetic centres - laboratories as well as clinics, the users of EuroGentest ‘products'.

We will present EuroGentest2 at the ESHG meeting in June , at the booth, to spread the news. Also, we plan to organize a meeting well before the start, i.e. sometime in the fall. We aim for January 1st 2011 for the project to formally start.

Please realize that 2 million EUR is not a lot for an ambitious plan and in view of the large scope of EuroGentest. We will have to make difficult choices about where to invest efforts and money first. The transition for Network of Excellence to Coordination Action, and the concomitant reduction of the budget, also forced us to give in on aspects of education, ethical and legal studies, and on research per se. But the main objectives of EuroGentest will continue to get full attention and support. The Steering Committee and an Advisory Board will help and guide us in this respect.

To nevertheless encompass the largest possible scope, EuroGentest will closely collaborate with other European-funded projects and networks. For instance, we consider to append the scientific meeting of EUROGENTEST back-to-back to the scientific meeting of TECHGENE (‘Technological innovation of high throughput molecular diagnostics of clinically and molecularly heterogeneous genetic disorders', see www.techgene.org ). We will also link to the READNA project (‘REvolutionary Approaches and Devices for Nucleic Acid analysis' , www.cng.fr/READNA ). The combination of these 3 projects covers all aspects from technology development to diagnostic implementation and validation to quality assurance. Other projects in which members of EuroGentest are involved are e.g. GEN2PHEN (to unify genetic variation databases, www.gen2phen.org ) and NMD CHIP (designing DNA arrays to efficiently diagnose patients affected with neuromuscular diseases, www.nmd-chip.eu ).