October 20, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio – As part of a select group of 25 national clinical sites, The Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital have received a seven-year grant supporting clinical trials for neurologic diseases.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) has created a Network of Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials (NeuroNEXT) program that fosters the cooperation needed between sites across the country to conduct timely trials. The first meeting of all NeuroNEXT principal investigators is scheduled for Nov. 18 at the NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland.
“The program promises to fundamentally alter how neurologic trials are performed in this country by increasing the efficiency and quality of studies while reducing the costs of trials,” said Dr. John Kissel, program director in the division of neuromuscular medicine at Ohio State Medical Center and principal investigator for the project. “The award recognizes the unique and extensive basic, translational and clinical neuroscience research done at Ohio State, and the depth and breadth of experience represented by the neuroscience faculty.”
NeuroNEXT fosters collaboration by connecting centers studying the same disease to improve future trials for patients. It allows clinical sites to efficiently design and implement pediatric and adult clinical trials encompassing the entire spectrum of neurologic diseases. Clinical sites will be able to consolidate resources, integrating the efforts and components of experienced neuroscience clinical trial groups more fully into existing initiatives.
The program will build on the comprehensive research through The Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science, the Department of Neuroscience at the Ohio State College of Medicine, and the Departments of Neurology and Neurological Surgery at Ohio State and Nationwide Children’s. Co-principal investigators involved in the NeuroNEXT program include Dr. Ali Rezai at The Ohio State University Medical Center and Dr. Steve Roach at Nationwide Children’s.