Antonio Abbate and Jennifer Economy Lead Presentations on Scientific Review Committee
Last week, the VCU C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research (Wright CCTR) sponsored a series of Brown Bag Lunch seminars on the new VCU Scientific Review Committee (SRC) which is set to begin reviewing research projects in September 2016.
The presentations were led by Jennifer Economy, M.S.H.A., SRC executive director, and Antonio Abbate, M.D., Ph.D., medical director of the Wright CCTR’s Clinical Research Services, and associate chair of the SRC.
The mission of the SRC is to ensure that all research projects involving humans at VCU meet acceptable standards of scientific rigor and feasibility without obstructing institutional efficiency and timeliness.
“The SRC leaders and members understand the challenges of getting ideas to become studies, and studies to yield results,” said Economy. “Every researcher we asked to join this team was excited about the opportunity. It’s truly a passionate group of people who have assembled for the cause.”
Economy went on to explain that VCU is on a path to becoming a premier, urban research institute. The existence of an SRC at VCU puts the University in line with other leading academic research institutions who have already adopted the SRC program.
The publication of a special reported titled, “CTSA Consortium Consensus Scientific Review Committee (SRC) Working Group Report on the SRC Processes,” in Clinical and Translational Science (CTS), the official journal of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, motivated VCU to re-start the SRC process. In the past, the former General and Clinical Research Center (GCRS) led a GCRC Advisory Committee (GAC) for many years. When VCU established the VCU Wright CCTR in 2007 and later received a $20 million Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the GAC was dissolved with the idea being that it would reconfigured in the future to meet the demands of translational research at VCU.
“The SRC group believes in teaming up to do great research at VCU,” said Abbate. “We want this process to be a help, not a burden to researchers, and it is important to us that the experience be transparent for all those involved.”
To learn more about the SRC, visit www.cctr.vcu.edu/src or contact Jennifer Economy at jennifer.economy@vcuhealth.com.
Second image: Jennifer Economy, M.S.H.A., SRC executive director
Fifth image: Antonio Abbate, M.D., Ph.D., medical director of the Wright CCTR’s Clinical Research Services, and associate chair of the SRC
Categories Clinical Research, Collaboration