The European disorder of sex development registry: A virtual research environment

Abstract

Disorders of sex development (DSD) are a rare group of conditions which require further research. Effective research into understanding the aetiology, as well as long-term outcome of these rare conditions, requires multicentre collaboration often across national boundaries. The EU-funded EuroDSD programme (www.eurodsd.eu) is one such collaboration involving clinical centres and clinical and genetic experts across Europe. At the heart of the EuroDSD collaboration is a European DSD registry and a targeted virtual research environment (VRE) that supports the sharing of DSD data. Security, ethics and information governance are cornerstones of this infrastructure. This paper describes the infrast..