Welcome

Welcome to the EMQN website. EMQN is a not-for-profit organisation promoting quality in molecular genetic testing through the provision of external quality assessment (proficiency testing schemes) and the organisation of best practice meetings and publication of guidelines.

Open call - best practice meeting topics

EMQN in conjunction with EuroGentest are issuing an open call for topics for best practice meetings to be held in 2009. This call is subject to available funding. The aim of these meetings will be to draft new best practice guidelines or update existing ones for molecular genetics testing.

Expressions of interests for a disease or technique specific best practice meetings should be submitted to Outi Kämäräinen outi.kamarainen@CMMC.nhs.uk by 31st of October 2008.

Topics for the meetings from the expression of interest will be chosen by the EMQN management group based on the availability of up to date guidelines and funding.

Best practice meetings

2008

The EMQN in conjunction with EuroGentest is organising two best practice meetingsfor genetic diagnostics in 2008. The meetings will develop or update best practice guidelines for the following 2 diseases:

• Long QT syndrome (LQT) - 22nd and 23rd September 2008   (REGISTRATION CLOSED)
• Myotonic Dystrophy (DM) - 31st October 2008   (REGISTRATION CLOSED)
• Duchenne / Becker Muscular Dystrophy - 15th and 16th November 2008   (REGISTRATION CLOSED)

For more information on these meetings, please go to the best practice page or click here

2008 SCHEMES

For the 2008 round of EQA, EMQN will be running the usual schemes as well as four new pilot schemes (for list of schemes see below). The scheme registration opens on 5^th of May and you have until 21^st July to register to take part in the current years schemes. The cheaper registration period ends in beginning of July (€220.00 per scheme before this date and €250.00 after). 


DISEASE-SPECIFIC EQA SCHEMES
Y-chromosome micro deletions (AZF)
Hereditary breast cancer (BRCA)
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) (pilot scheme)
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT)
Connexin 26 (CNX26) (pilot scheme)
Myotonic dystrophy (DM)
Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies (DMD)
Fragile X syndrome (FRAX)
Friedreich ataxia (FRDA)
Huntington disease (HD)
Hereditary haemochromatosis (HFE)
Hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer (HNPCC)
Monogenic diabetes (MonoDiab)
Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Type 2 (MEN2) (pilot scheme)
Phenylketonuria (PKU)
Porphyria (POR)
Prader-willi and Angelman syndromes (PWAS)
Retinoblastoma (RB)
Spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA)
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)
Von Hippel Lindau syndrome (VHL) (pilot scheme)
Wilson disease (WIL)

TECHNIQUE-SPECIFIC EQA SCHEMES
Mutation scanning (MSCAN)
DNA sequencing (SEQ)

» For more information, download a copy of the EQA scheme catalogue – PDF-File, 477.1 KB

Registering with EMQN

EMQN is a not-for-profit organisation promoting quality in molecular genetic testing. We charge a small annual registration fee to become a member of the network. Registration can be done online via this website and ensures that you recieve the latest information about the network, our activities, and entitles you to participate in our external quality assessment (EQA) schemes and best practice meetings. To register with EMQN click here.

Website user guide

A user guide to the EMQN website can be found here:

External Quality Assessment schemes

External Quality Assessment (EQA) is the comparison of the performance of a laboratory against an agreed independent standard. EMQN organises EQA schemes for molecular genetics. To find out more about our EQA schemes, click here.