The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has also been awarded $41.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to oversee a 17-site pediatric clinical trial network that will provide medically underserved and rural children access to clinical studies studying environmental influences on early development.
UAMS will be the Data Coordinating and Operations Center (DCOC) for the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trial Network (ISPCTN), and was awarded this after competing among several other institutions.
UAMS’ award is part of a national seven-year, $157 million Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) initiative. The UAMS DCOC will be the central unit within the ISPCTN that provides data coordination, technical instruction, data standards, quality control and assurance and operational coordination for the clinical trials.
Principal investigators are Charlotte Hobbs, MD, PhD, executive associate dean for research in the UAMS College of Medicine and the Pamela D. Stephens professor of Birth Defects Research; and Jeannette Lee, PhD, professor of biostatistics in the UAMS College of Medicine.
Both investigators bring much experience in their respective fields. Hobbs, a pediatrician and epidemiologist, has been involved with research initiatives supported through the Children’s Health Act since 2001. Lee has been the director of Data Coordinating and Operations Centers in other clinical trials.
“The UAMS College of Medicine has extensive experience in the management of the ‘big data’ that drives transformational research, as well as in leadership and administration of major clinical trials in rural areas,” Moseley said. “We look forward to working with our faculty colleagues at the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute and the 16 other clinical sites in the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network that we will support and lead as the Data Coordinating and Operations Center.”
The overall NIH award will build the infrastructure and capacity for the ECHO program to support multiple, longitudinal studies that extend and expand existing studies of mothers and their children.