MD-NET (Muscular Dystrophy Network) is a Germany-wide consortium funded by the BMBF to improve medical care for people with neuromuscular diseases (funding code 01GM0887).
From 2003 up to and including 2013, extensive structures were created to promote basic research, diagnostics and the establishment of clinical studies. MD-NET bundles competences from all over Germany for the research of muscular dystrophies, spinal muscular atrophies (SMA), and other rare hereditary neuromuscular diseases.
MD-NET has been constituted since 2006 as a non-profit association - MD-NET e.V. - in order to be able to act Europe-wide, and thus became the German partner of TREAT-NMD (Assessment and Treatment of Neuromuscular Diseases), a network of excellence for rare diseases funded by the EU in FP6. Within TREAT-NMD, MD-NET leads the activities on European harmonized patient registries, biobanks and a European Clinical Trial Center, thus enabling the translation of research results into clinical trials, and the transfer of results such as current treatment standards to the majority of muscular dystrophy patients in Germany.
The goal is to establish new scientific knowledge on genetics, diagnostics and therapy of neuromuscular diseases and a comprehensive molecular diagnostics for the currently known gene loci in muscular dystrophies, spinal muscular atrophies and hereditary neuropathies, as well as linkage and mutation analyses for previously unknown genes.
The network is supported by the MD-NET network center. It is located in the Friedrich-Baur-Institute at the Dept. of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich.
