Clinical Trials

Before new treatments can reach the clinic, they must be tested in clinical trials to see if they are safe and effective. Trials that do not enroll enough participants present roadblocks for advancing care to the clinic because they offer no scientific insight, waste money and time and inflate the costs of new treatments. Improving clinical trial efficiency – ensuring robust patient enrollment

A large randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial led by the National Institutes of Health shows that treating adults hospitalized with COVID-19 with infliximab or abatacept — drugs widely used to treat certain autoimmune diseases — did not significantly shorten time to recovery but did substantially improve clinical status and reduce deaths. Some COVID-19 patients experience an immune

The Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS) hosted their 4th annual Symposium and Poster Display on Friday, May 13, 2022. The theme “Making an Impact, Shaping the Future” focused on strategies to address equity and diversity challenges experienced by institutions across the national Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) network. The hybrid event

When scientific advances burst into the news, such as a new medication to treat COVID-19 or a new concept like CRISPR for gene editing, people get a glimpse of how a scientific idea becomes a treatment or a tool. But what's the full story? Where did that idea come from? What happens in the research lab before clinical trials begin? How is scientific discovery transformed into a potential therapy

A new video sponsored by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Translational Research Institute (TRI) is being used to help raise awareness among researchers about the inclusion of older adults in research. The five-minute video also has tips for helping researchers recruit more adults over age 65. The video was produced in collaboration with the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus

A clinical trial at UC Davis Health and six other sites showed that a cellular therapy offers promise for patients with late-stage Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disorder causing muscle loss and physical impairments in young people.

UC Davis Health is partnering with Pfizer on two new clinical trials to test the COVID-19 booster vaccine in healthy adults. The UC Davis CTSC Clinical Research Center (CCRC) is providing professional patient care and research services to both clinical trials. It boasts a highly qualified staff who earned the Patient Safety Innovation Award in 2021 for supporting pioneering research on COVID-19

The University of Pennsylvania will be conducting a mixed methods study, funded by NCATS through a bioethics supplement to the University of Pennsylvania’s CTSA, to examine institutional approaches to prioritizing COVID-19 trials. The goal of this study is to understand relevant processes and criteria applied during the pandemic, as well as perspectives on potentially extending these approaches to

The Society for Clinical Trials (SCT) issued a call for submissions for two awards: - Thomas C. Chalmers Student Scholarship (http://www.sctweb.org/chalmers.cfm): Students currently enrolled in a graduate degree program (Masters, PhD, or DrPH) at an accredited college or university, or postdoctoral fellows (who completed their PhD/DrPH within the last two years) are encouraged to apply. Three

For Argentino Calvo, a retired firefighter and paramedic from Bluffton, South Carolina, joining a COVID-19 vaccine trial was not just a personal choice but an investment in the health of his community. Calvo participated in the Novavax vaccine trial at MUSC, which was part of a large-scale study that recruited over 30,000 patients across 119 study sites in the United States and Mexico. SCTR co

Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School are collaborating with the Mayo Clinic to test the use of a senolytic therapy against COVID-19. The therapy targets the fundamental biology of aging. Initial findings, published June 8 in Science, suggest that using drugs to clear out older, damaged cells could reduce the inflammation and immune system overreaction that leads to severe or

The CTSA program was developed to accelerate new treatments from the lab to patients, enabled to a large extent by patients participating in and benefiting from clinical trials. Clinical trials provide that needed bridge from human subjects to hypotheses to treatments that can directly benefit human health. And, never has this connection been more critical than amid the global COVID-19 pandemic

No champion race car driver can win without a dedicated pit crew. The same is true in medical research. Thanks to their “pit crew” Mayo Clinic researchers were able to repurpose an experimental therapy, called lenzilumab, for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, and from there into a phase three clinical trial — all in about one year. "I think we’ve accomplished in this year what normally would take

When Linda Thompson retired from the Virginia Department of Transportation in 2019, she started a new job the next day — getting fit. “My new job was going to American Family Fitness and getting in the pool and doing water aerobics,” said Thompson, 72. “I was really in bad shape when I retired. So it was time for me to take care of Linda.” Thompson lost 60 pounds over the next year. The exercise

Among the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute's most important services to the research community are their support and tools (https://bit.ly/3qmjIb9) designed to help investigators overcome the all-too-familiar hurdle of clinical study recruitment. As a result, few people are more cognizant of the importance of participation in clinical research than the personnel of

Among the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute's most important services to the research community are their support and tools (https://bit.ly/3qmjIb9) designed to help investigators overcome the all-too-familiar hurdle of clinical study recruitment. As a result, few people are more cognizant of the importance of participation in clinical research than the personnel of

Clinical trials help researchers discover and apply critical advances in patient care. Clinical trials follow rigorous scientific processes that usually take many years to complete. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been able to see and experience clinical trials operating on fast-forward. And a lot of people are wondering, "How do clinical trials work?" In this Q&A, the Mayo

Paul “Pee-J” Beverly doesn’t remember being airlifted to VCU Health from Lexington, Va., last fall. In fact, he doesn’t remember much of his COVID-19 experience at all. But his girlfriend, Angela Griffin, does. “It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever been through,” she said. “Not being able to see him, barely being able to talk to him. And knowing it was touch and go. They pretty much

Kate Marusina, director of the CTSC Clinical Trials Office, oversees a team that provides support for clinical trials at UC Davis. UC Davis conducts more than 2,000 research studies at any given time, including basic science, translational, and clinical trial research — all with the goal of bringing new, effective, and safe treatments to patients more quickly. In this brief interview conducted by