Association bodies & committees
General Assembly of Members
The General Assembly is the supreme body of NAKO e.V., sets the guidelines for the work of the organisation and decides on issues of general importance.
Its tasks include in particular Electing the Board of Directors and appointing the members of individual committees. It advises on the status and planning of the German National Cohort (NAKO) and decides on scientific priorities, standards, instruments, processes and procedures. It develops concepts for quality assurance and development as well as the “Code of Ethics” of NAKO (PDF in German) and decides on the allocation of data and biomaterials to external researchers. It decides on the business plan submitted by the Board of Directors and the annual financial statements as well as the contribution and utilisation regulations and the regulations on the utilisation, protection and exploitation of work results.
Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of NAKO e.V. is the managing body of the organisation. It consists of five members. It is the external representative of the German National Cohort (NAKO) towards science, politics, the media, the public and sponsors.
The tasks of the Board of Directors include, in particular, coordinating the activities of the members in the planning and implementation of the German National Cohort (NAKO), examining and deciding on internal and external applications for the transfer of biomaterials and/or data from the NAKO and controlling the inflow of funding and the outflow of project funding to the participating institutions. The Board of Directors is also responsible for preparing the annual financial statements and the annual report.

Prof Dr Annette Peters - Chairwoman of the Board of Directors
Dr Esther Breunig
Prof Dr Wolfgang Lieb
Prof Dr Tobias Pischon
Prof Dr Tamara Schikowski
Scientific Advisory Board
The organisation is supported by an international Scientific Advisory Board. This advises the Executive Board and the General Assembly on all scientific and programmatic issues. The Scientific Advisory Board consists of at least six and a maximum of ten scientists working on a voluntary basis. For questions of transfer and translation into practice, the Scientific Advisory Board forms a committee that can recruit other personalities, e.g. from industry and associations, as members.
Prof Dr Paul Elliott
Prof Dr Nicole Probst-Hensch
Prof Dr Vasan S. Ramachandran
Prof Dr Udo Hoffmann
Prof Dr Beate Ritz
Prof Dr Martin Bobak
Ethics Advisory Board
The NAKO e.V. association is supported by an ethics advisory board consisting of six to ten volunteer experts who represent ethical, social, scientific, medical and legal concerns in the field of life sciences in a special way. A participant in the German National Cohort (NAKO) is also a member of the committee.
The Ethics Advisory Board advises the Executive Board and the General Assembly on all ethical issues that arise during the implementation of the German National Cohort (NAKO). Its work is based on the “Code of Ethics” of NAKO (PDF in German) adopted by the General Assembly, which sets out the ethical framework for the study.
Prof Dr Jochen Taupitz
Prof Dr Elmar Doppelfeld
Prof Dr Dr Walter Lehmacher
Prof Dr Markus M. Nöthen
Prof Dr Michael Fuchs
Prof Dr Ruth Horn
Ursula Klinnert-Weber
MRI Advisory Board
The MRI Advisory Board advises the MR Imaging Core and the MRI sites. The members have extensive experience from international studies such as the Framingham Heart Study, UK Biobank and the Rotterdam Study. They advise the German National Cohort (NAKO) experts to ensure maximum safety, efficiency and quality in MR data collection.
Prof Dr Christopher M. Kramer
Prof Dr Steffen Petersen
Prof Dr M. A. Ikram
Prof Dr Jeffrey Carr
Prof Dr Udo Hoffmann
Prof Dr Gabriel Krestin
Prof Dr Chris O’Donnel
Use & Access Committee (UAC)
The Use & Access Committee (UAC) consists of nine members who are elected by the General Assembly for a term of four years on the recommendation of the Executive Board. After careful examination of the incoming usage applications and Level 3 applications in accordance with the Association’s usage regulations and Level 3 regulations, the UAC makes a written recommendation to the Board of Directors on each application.
Prof Dr Nico Dragano (Acting spokesman of UAC)
Prof Dr André Karch (Acting spokesman of UAC)
Prof Dr Tobias Pischon
Prof Dr Tamara Schikowski
Dr Alexandra Schneider
Dr Katharina Weber
Dr Sylvia Gastell
Dr Christian Gieger
Dr Christoph Stallmann
Name | Institution |
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Lieb (Speaker of UAC) | Kiel University |
Prof. Dr. Nico Dragano | Düsseldorf University Hospital |
Prof. Dr. André Karch | University of Münster |
Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Leitzmann | University of Regensburg |
Prof. Dr. Tobias Pischon | Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin-Buch |
Prof. Dr. Tamara Schikowski | Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine (IUF), Düsseldorf |
Dr. Alexandra Schneider | Helmholtz Munich (HMGU) |
Dr. Katharina Weber | University of Kiel |