The Use & Access Committee (UAC), together with the German National Cohort (NAKO), is responsible for decisions on scientific access to the data and biosamples of the NAKO. The members are elected for a term of office of four years. The committee will start with new members in 2025.
NAKO e.V. warmly welcomes the following new members to the UAC: Dr Sylvia Gastell, Dr Christian Gieger, Dr Christoph Stallmann and Dr Katharina Weber. Prof Dr André Karch and Prof Dr Nico Dragano are acting spokespersons for the UAC. The tenure of the previous UAC spokesperson Prof Dr Wolfgang Lieb and the UAC members Prof Dr Michael Leitzmann, Prof Dr Hajo Zeeb and Prof Dr Susanne Moebus ended at the end of 2024. Many thanks for their many years of dedicated work in the UAC!
Members Use & Access Committee (UAC):

Prof. Dr. Nico Dragano (Acting spokesman UAC), University Hospital Düsseldorf
Focus: Social and labour epidemiology, migration, psychosocial factors, risk factor epidemiology

Prof. Dr. André Karch (Acting spokesman UAC), University of Münster
Focus: Infectious diseases and neuroepidemiology

Prof. Dr. Tobias Pischon, Max Delbrück Centre Berlin
Focus: Molecular and cardiovascular epidemiology, nutrition

Prof. Dr. Tamara Schikowski, Leibniz Institute for Environmental Medical Research Düsseldorf
Focus: Environmental and cardiovascular epidemiology; environment-related diseases

Dr. Alexandra Schneider, Helmholtz Munich
Focus: Environmental epidemiology

Dr. Katharina Weber, University of Kiel
Focus: Nutrition and metabolism, especially diabetes

Dr. Sylvia Gastell, German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE) Potsdam-Rehbrücke
Focus: Nutrition, lifestyle, physical activity

Dr. Christoph Stallmann, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg
Focus: Secondary and register data

Dr. Christian Gieger, Helmholtz Munich
Schwerpunkt: Genetik, Genomik und molekulare Genotypisierung
The German National Cohort (NAKO) is a major scientific resource that enables new scientific discoveries to improve public health. The health data and biosamples collected for over 10 years will be used by scientists from European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) organisations for health-related research in the interest of society. All applications for data use are rigorously scrutinised with regard to the objectives and achievable benefits.
“We handle the data and biosamples from the German National Cohort (NAKO) responsibly in the interests of our participants and to protect the high scientific value. We ensure that they are used exclusively for research purposes that serve the common good and only by researchers in countries with an appropriate level of data protection. The UAC examines all applications for NAKO research data and biosamples in terms of subject matter and content and in accordance with all applicable ethical and data protection aspects. Projects that have been positively assessed by the UAC must be evaluated and approved once again by the NAKO e.V. Executive Board.”
Acting Spokesmen of UAC Prof. Dr. André Karch und Prof. Dr. Nico Dragano.
The Use & Access Committee (UAC) consists of nine members who are elected for four years by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Executive Board. All scientific analyses with NAKO data and biosamples must be applied for via the NAKO TransferHub and reviewed by the Use & Access Committee (UAC) and the NAKO Board. The principles that apply to scientific access to the German National Cohort (NAKO) are set out in the Terms of Use and the Code of Ethics. In addition, NAKO follows the guidelines of ‘Data Sharing’, ‘Open Science’ and ‘Fair’.