International organizations such as the World Economic Forum have been researching and analyzing the “future of work” and its implications for economies. Likewise, consulting firms have been predicting the important training needed to prepare workforces for new labor markets. Surveys of company leaders indicate an increasing need for employee upskilling and retraining. The COVID pandemic […]
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced this week that they were joining forces with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ten pharmaceutical companies and five non-profit organizations to accelerate the development of gene therapies for rare diseases. The new public-private partnership, called the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium, aims to overcome obstacles and streamline the […]
When investigators embark on designing, writing, and initiating the clinical trial, their responsibilities are just beginning. The FDA calls these investigators “sponsor-investigators (SIs)”. A sponsor-investigator is an individual who both initiates and conducts an investigation, and under whose immediate direction the investigational drug is administered or dispensed. In other words, in an investigator-initiated trial, the […]
The campus closures necessitated by the pandemic in 2020 forced many research administration officials to adopt virtual meetings to continue their work. People scrambled to set up their home offices, to secure Wi-Fi networks and create accounts on videoconferencing services. The Internet offered dozens of articles on how to improve online meetings to encourage engagement […]
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine Houston announced this week that they were stopping a clinical trial investigating the efficacy of convalescent plasma therapy in the treatment of patients with COVID-19. The reason, according to the principal investigator, was that statisticians had deemed the NIH-funded study to be futile. In other words, even with more […]
The current global pandemic combined with electronic medical records and data visualization technologies have resulted in unprecedented advances in real-time tracking of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, across countries, states and local communities. As the situation evolves, there will be ample opportunity and increased need for both retrospective and prospective COVID-19 research studies that […]
(Miami, FL) — The Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program), a division of BRANY, has announced new online courses and webinars designed to help research professionals understand and comply with regulatory requirements for clinical trials. The three courses and webinars address critical regulatory requirements: Transitioning research to the Revised Common Rule Protocol registration and disclosure […]
Public Posting An important provision in the Revised Common Rule is the requirement to post, to a publicly-available federal Web site, a copy of an IRB-approved version of the consent form that was used for enrollment purposes for each clinical trial conducted or supported by a federal department or agency. The Office for Human Research […]
The Revised Common Rule has a few important changes regarding consent waivers. Under the revised Common Rule, broad consent is provided as an alternative to the informed consent requirements for the storage, maintenance, and secondary research use of identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens. If an individual was asked and refused to provide broad consent, […]
Recent news about approved immunotherapy and gene therapies has generated excitement around the possibilities of treating difficult diseases. Organizations have increased funding in this area, including a recently announced $1.3 million grant in funding by the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy for research in gliobastoma, sarcoma and ovarian cancer. The increased attention and funding means […]
BRANY announced today the release of a new research protocol template specifically designed to address the unique needs of social-behavioral-education researchers, as part of Protocol Builder®, a secure, cloud-based protocol writing application. “Social and behavioral research is distinct from biomedical research,” says Jeffrey Cohen, PhD, a principal with HRP Consulting Group, also a division of […]