An interregional network will make it significantly easier to attract, conduct and administer clinical trials and intervention studies in the field of diabetes.
In this connection, advantage must also be taken of the proximity of the cluster of Danish and international life science companies that already have well-established scientific relationships with many diabetologists from both the Region of Southern Denmark and the other Regions.
In diabetes patients who have already developed the disease, research using large-scale clinical intervention studies will focus especially on the best ways of treating diabetes diseases, including:
- Lifestyle interventions, e.g. prevention and treatment of obesity
- New drug treatments
- Stem-cell treatment
There will be an emphasis on studies of the individual patient so that the intervention can be individualized.
SDCO must also take advantage of Denmark’s world-leading position in clinical registries and health documentation. Denmark is especially strong in population and disease registries and associated skills in registry statistical analysis and epidemiology. The Region of Southern Denmark has solid expertise in registry-based studies, especially using:
- The Danish Twins Registry
- The Odense University Pharmacoepidemiological Database (OPED)
- The Odense Patient Data Explorative Network (OPEN)
- The DD2 cohort
All above mentioned data registries are hosted at SDU and in the Region of Southern Denmark.
Many years of experience show that, if this expertise is tightly integrated with the development of clinical research, there is great potential to deliver translational research spanning all stages of life.
SDCO must contribute to the accumulation of significant quantities of tissue and cell samples for use in large-scale clinical intervention studies, and must be an important communicator of knowledge about clinical epidemiology, registry research and pharmacoepidemiology for use in research and health promotion across the region and the country.
Program manager
Professor Claus Bogh Juhl
