Finally, NORMAN is committed to improving harmonization of sampling protocols for dust and air.
The diversity of exposure scenarios monitored by researchers, coupled with the diversity of pesticides in use, presents an extremely complex picture for harmonization of sampling and data analysis approaches.
The NORMAN community is recognized as particularly strong in analytical matters and the studies organized by the network represent a crucial step for the scientific community and for environmental agencies in the preparation of the ground for validation and harmonization of innovative sampling and monitoring tools before their possible future implementation in regulations.
First, a harmonization of methodologies for airway sample collection, processing and analysis is required to provide comparable datasets.
Moreover, standardization and harmonization of phenotypic data and biologic sample collection methods are crucial to allow meaningful comparison between different patient populations and (ethnic) groups in endometriosis research, and will aid the scientific inquiry into the etiology and pathogenesis of the disease.
Improved collaborations should be fostered by the establishment and harmonization of standard operating procedures for sample processing, data acquisition and formatting; and by the development of software that is user-friendly for the non-specialist as well as facilitating an Open Access policy to allow free data sharing and automatic mining of publications.
We believe that harmonization of the storage conditions of biological samples for immuno-phenotyping of PMN-MDSCs and immature MDSCs is essential, if these methods are to be transferred to clinical practice and comparable results obtained in multicenter trials.
The biomarker core has recently achieved the harmonization of protocol for X-MAP quantitation of CSF samples using Alzbio3 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, in collaboration with NA-ADNI biomarker core and Innogenetics.
Some of these immunoassays (planar and non-planar microarrays) may contribute to overcoming some drawbacks of the monoplex immunoassays (time expenditure, costs, lack of harmonization, volume of reagents and samples, turnaround time, etc).
The literature is limited by a lack of harmonization of measures across studies, retrospective designs, and small and idiosyncratic samples.
