What is NUBIN?

The NUBIN is the NeuroUnit Biomarkers for Inflammation and Neurodegeneration.

NUBIN is a collaboration between several departments of the VUmc for a common goal: the development of assays in body fluids useful for diagnosis and monitoring of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases such as AD and MS.

Why is NUBIN founded?

The diagnosis and monitoring of chronic neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), is severely hampered by the inaccessibility of the affected brain for these purposes. There is a lack of biochemical markers that can be measured in body fluids such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or blood, which could provide information about these diseases. Such biomarkers would increase the possibilities to understand the pathobiochemical mechanisms, to obtain information about the prognosis, to develop therapies and to monitor the effects of therapeutic interventions.

How can we reach the goals?

The strength of the NUBIN lies in the collaboration of research groups with a common interest in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. In particular the NUBIN profits from:

• An continuously expanding bank of body material of well documented patients
• Complementary expertise in the participating groups on: clinimetrics and epidemiology, biobanking and databases, neurochemistry and immunochemistry, cell culture and molecular biology, genomics and proteomics.
• Availability of models to identify new markers for neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration
• Multidiscipinary projects

Where are the activities of the NUBIN performed?

• Collection of the patient material: Neurology (AD and MS) as well as Pathology
• Biobanking: Clinical Chemistry
• Development of databases: Neurology in collaboration with Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
• Development of biochemical assays: Clinical Chemistry, Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology.
• Routine analyses: department of Clinical Chemistry.

How is NUBIN organised?

NUBIN's daily coordination is performed by Dr. Charlotte Teunissen

A steering group has monthly meetings to define strategies and determine the activities of NUBIN.

Members of the steering group

Members of the steering group are representatives of groups that substantially contribute to biobanking and share their biological samples.