Committees
RDCRN members participate in various committees to guide and support the network. Committees are facilitated by the Data Management and Coordinating Center (DMCC). Learn more about the committees below.
CPAG Steering Committee
The role of the Coalition of Patient Advocacy Groups (CPAG) Steering Committee is to help facilitate the development of activities that will benefit the entire CPAG membership. Those activities include (but are not limited to) webinars, in-person meetings, and one-on-one connections with other CPAG members and RDCRN researchers.
CPAG Steering Committee members make a commitment to attend monthly one-hour teleconference meetings and to participate collaboratively with other members on projects identified to help accelerate research as outlined in the CPAG vision and mission statements. In addition, CPAG Steering Committee members disseminate information and decisions from the CPAG Steering Committee meetings to PIs and other individual consortium PAG members in a timely manner.
2023-2024 Leadership
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Andrea MillerRDCRN-CPAG Steering Committee Chair Part of the Frontiers in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation Consortium (FCDGC) | Ellyn KodroffRDCRN-CPAG Steering Committee Co-Chair Part of the Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers (CEGIR) |
Current Patient Advocacy Group Representatives
Network Steering Committee
The RDCRN Network Steering Committee oversees governance and decision making for trans-network policies and procedures. Its membership includes the principal investigators of the 20 research consortia, leadership of the Coalition of Patient Advocacy Groups (CPAG) and the DMCC, and the program officer based in the NCATS Division of Rare Diseases Research Innovation (DRDRI).
2024 Leadership
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David Kimberlin, MD, Co-ChairPrincipal Investigator, Congenital and Perinatal Infections Consortium Co-Director, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham
| Eva Morava-Kozicz, MD, PhD, Co-ChairPrincipal Investigator, Frontiers in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation Consortium Professor of Medical Genetics, Department of Clinical Genomics, Mayo Clinic | Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, Co-ChairConsortium Director, Developmental Synaptopathies Consortium Associate Chief of Research, Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital |
RDCRN Committees
The RDCRN committees are dedicated to solving problems that impact all consortia, creating opportunities for members, and improving the network. They also allow members to connect with other consortia.
Committees include:
- Career Enhancement Committee—The Career Enhancement Committee aims to identify and leverage existing career enhancement programs, provide disease-specific/cross-disease training, and identify networking/learning opportunities within/across consortia.
- Coalition of Patient Advocacy Groups (CPAG) Steering Committee—The CPAG Steering Committee facilitates the development of activities that will benefit the entire CPAG membership. Each rare disease research group (consortium) in the network includes relevant PAGs in consortium membership and activities. These PAG representatives advise the researchers within their consortium by joining network-level discussions and meetings.
- Cross-Consortia Collaboration Committee—The mission of the Cross-Consortia Collaboration Committee is to foster collegiality, exchange, and alignment among the RDCRN consortia.
- Data Sharing Committee—The Data Sharing Committee aims to develop regulatory/legal language to allow data sharing and determine strategies/policies for data sharing. These resources are available to anyone seeking data sharing guidance.
- Data Standards Committee—The Data Standards Committee is working to define data standards to improve data quality, usability, and interoperability using FAIR principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. These resources are available to anyone seeking data standards guidance.
- Diversity Committee—The mission of the Diversity Committee is to advance medical research of rare diseases through awareness and actions that foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) efforts that are tailored to the unique needs of all members of the rare disease community.
- Genomics Special Interest Group—The Genomics Special Interest Group aims to share research experiences in working with genomics data in the rare diseases space.
- Network Steering Committee—The Network Steering Committee aims to identify Network-level scientific and policy issues, review and approve all RDCRN-wide policies, and ensure dissemination to the wider scientific community.
- Statistics and Epidemiology Special Interest Group—The Statistics and Epidemiology Special Interest Group aims to research and evaluate innovative study designs, statistical methodologies, strategies for sharing of programming code, utility of NCATS-provided resources, and reporting of statistical results.