News By: Emily Norris

Are you hoping to make the most out of attending your first ACRP conference in Anaheim in early May but feeling a little anxious about the “sit down next to someone you don’t know and introduce yourself” ritual of such big gatherings? Take heart—if you drum up some courage and listen to the wisdom of those who have gone before you, you will find yourself looking back on your time at ACRP 2024 with the pride of accomplishment that comes from putting your best foot forward, getting in the game, and making great professional strides in your clinical research career. 

With a focus on prioritizing patient and investigator needs, the traditional sponsor-contract research organization relationship is evolving to include sites as part of the partnership matrix. This, combined with the increasing adoption of Functional Service Provider delivery models, has made determining the right balance of control and accountability for each party a critical factor in successful outsourcing partnerships.  

Clinical research trainers will tell you that not every trainee will flourish under the same kind of instruction—some excel in face-to-face classroom settings, some blossom with online courses, and guided reading or some combination of these with other learning methods will hit the spot in other cases. However, when it comes to learning how to effectively conduct the sensitive and mandatory process of informed consent with clinical trial volunteers, simulated consenting holds many advantages for trainees who are new to the concept.

Clinical researchers today need strong grant-writing skills to get their high-impact research projects approved and funded. Yet effective writing techniques typically aren’t taught in medical school, leaving many researchers struggling to create opportunities to further their work. That’s why the Harvard Medical School Postgraduate Medical Education’s Global Clinical Scholars Research Training program fills in the gaps to strengthen participants’ skills in this area and equip them with a valuable competitive edge to move the field forward. 

Many in the clinical trials ecosystem would like to see wider adoption of decentralized trial elements. “Yet, despite recent draft guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as an industry we haven’t made huge strides in adopting this model for interventional studies,” notes Noelle Gaskill, Head of Clinical Research Collaborations at Mirati Therapeutics, Inc.