2nd ASTERIX Project Team Meeting - April 2014 Hannover
25-04-2014
After the kick-off meeting in Amsterdam last year (2013) the second ASTERIX project meeting took place in Hannover from April 23 to 25.
In between these two meetings the team 
has expanded substantially, in particular with new young phd students, resulting in almost 30 participants.
After a working dinner for the discussion of organisational matters on Wednesday evening, the meeting started on Thursday with discussions and presentations on the importance of balance in randomized clinical trials (Armin Koch), adaptive designs with survival endpoints (Dominic Magirr) and an introduction of Bayesian statistics in clinical trials (Konstantinos Pateras).
Thereafter Charlotte Gaasterland introduced the Goal Attainment Scaling to us (‘GAS for dummies’) followed by a tutorial on ethical aspects of the Asterix project (Rieke van der Graaf).
Our invited speaker .jpg)
(Bernd Jilma, Medical University of Vienna) added value to our conference by discussing and illustrating a proof of concept study in Von Willebrand Disease, a practical example of a very rare disease.
A variety of research topics were presented to stimulate discussion, identify problems and generate new ideas for our collaborative research. Topics ranged from adaptive designs (Susanne Urach), MCP for three primary endpoints (Robin Ristl) and randomization/stratification methods (Anika Grosshennig), systematic review on series of trials (Konstantinos Pateras) and optimal sequential designs (Stavros Nikolakopoulos), to planning on the improved patient involvement (Martine Jansen-van der Weide) and building a classification of rare diseases for statistical purposes; both the methodological approach (Roser Vives, Ferran Torres) as well as first preliminary results (Caridad Pontes).
Discussions on organisational and collaboration aspects regarding the forthcoming project meeting concluded a very successful two-day meeting.
Due to the sunny weather, the excellent organisation and hospitality of our Hannover Medical School (MHH) partner, and contributions of all presenters and lively discussions by all participants it has been a very constructive and successful 2nd ASTERIX project meeting.
Our next meeting will be in July 2014 in Vienna!
