$4.9 million has been awarded to CHRIM researcher, Dr. Lauren Kelly, assistant professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Manitoba from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Clinical Trials Fund to launch a new training platform, IMPaCT: Increasing Capacity for Maternal and Paediatric Clinical Trials. The three-year program will provide training and mentorship to create educational and mentoring opportunities for doctoral, postdoctoral and early career researchers and clinicians.
Children require medicines and other non-drug therapies for many reasons, however, most treatments have never been tested in children or approved for use in their age group. Clinical trials help answer important questions about which treatments work best under which conditions. Without clinical trials, pediatricians are often left to dose children based on data that has come from adults or other populations. Clinical trials take time, money, and expertise to answer meaningful questions and require highly-qualified personnel in clinical trials.
The IMPACT Team will provide free open-access education on clinical trial design, operations, and communication in child health clinical trials created and delivered by experts from across Canada which will be hosted online and available to the public.
The new platform will be composed of three distinct training programs; an online learning management system, an advanced fellowship and an annual skills development event. IMPACT will support a diverse network of research trainees, highly-qualified personnel, early career researchers, and mentors in child health who are positioned to lead high-impact interdisciplinary clinical trials and knowledge translation.
IMPACT will also be cogoverned by the recently funded Health Research Training Platform Empowering Next generation Researchers In perinatal and Child Health (ENRICH) and MICYRN alongside parents and youth to guide and sustain IMPACT activities during and beyond the three-year funding period, by embedding itself within the existing infrastructure of ENRICH.
Stay informed by visiting their website at www.IMPaCTrials.ca.