The kick off meeting of the project “Fighting Aneurismal Disease” (FAD) took place on September 21st, 2008 in the Salle Academique of Liege University (Belgium).

The purpose of this meeting was to explain the common organization of the next four years, to share information and databases and to facilitate the exchanges between the partners.

Each of the15 partners involved in the project was represented through 64 attendees.

The meeting was welcomed by a speech from the President of Liege University, Bernard Rentier. The FAD coordinator, Jean-Baptiste Michel, gave a general overview of the project, its 15 partners, with the planning, organization and the challenges of FAD.

Each work package team explained its strategy to achieve their objectives and deliverables.

Work package 7 “MANAGEMENT AND COORDINATION” Team leader: Jean-Baptiste Michel – Inserm - France Co team leader: Jean-Pierre Rogala - Pharmaleads - France

Presentation by the Junior Project Manager, Laure Trannoy (Pharmaleads), on the financial issues and the reporting requirements to be explained in the Management Guide.

Work package 6 “TRAINING AND DISSEMINATION” Team leader: Florence Pinet - Inserm - France Co team leader: Jean-Baptiste Michel - Inserm - France

Presentation by Florence Pinet on the different training actions to be made during the lifetime of the project, on the FAD website on line since September 17th, 2008 (www.fighting-aneurysm.org) and the intranet under progress.

Work package 1 “HUMAN DATABASES” Team leader: Jes Linholt - Viborg Hospital - Denmark Co team leader: Per Eriksson - Karolinska Institute - Sweden

Presentation by Jes Linholt on the AAA databases and the bioethics and by Per Eriksson on the TAA databases. The question of the human databases was thoroughly discussed. The four databases are in progress under the supervision of the Danish group. The question of the standardization of the biological samples (blood and tissue) was explained by Olivier Meilhac from Inserm.

Work package 2 “GENETICS AND FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS [from genes to phenotype]” Team leader: Paul Coucke - Ghent University - Belgium Co team leader: Unnur Thorsteinsdottir – DeCode – Iceland

Presentation by Paul Coucke and Solveig Gretarsdottir (deCode) on the AAA, TAA, GWA and the Functional genomic.

Work package 3 “PATHOPHYSIOLOGY [from phenotype to molecular determinants]” Team leader: Vladislav Treska - School of Medicine Plzen, Charles University – Czech Rep. Co team leader: José Luis Martin Ventura - Autonomous University of Madrid - Spain

Presentation by José Luis Martin Ventura and Vladislav Treska on pathophysiology and by Christian Gasser (Karolinska Institute) on biomechanics.

Work package 4 “DIAGNOSIS” Team leader: Natzi Sakalihasan - Liege University - Belgium Co team leader: Gillian Cockerill - St Georges Hospital Medical School - UK

Presentation by Gillian Cockerill and Natzi Sakalihasan on the questions of genetic, biomarker/proteomic, biomarker/circulating cells, molecular imaging and functional imaging.

Work package 5 “THERAPEUTICS” Team leader: Eric Allaire – CNRS - France Co team leader: Bart Loeys - Liege University - Belgium

Presentation by Eric Allaire on the medical prevention, cells therapy and bio-engineering involved.

The Kick off meeting was a real success. The key objectives of the meeting were met, thanks to the number of attendees, the quality of the different presentations and the level of exchange between themselves which has enabled the different teams to better know each other.