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Connecting the scientific dots. Fostering serendipitous connections among experts and students. Creating avenues for more dynamic medical research. 

Bringing such perspective is the goal for the monthly forums on randomized clinical trials organized by Peter G. Kaufmann, associate dean in UNLV’s School of Integrated Health Sciences.

“It’s been an ongoing career interest of mine: to promote better quality, more efficient, and more rigorous clinical trials to improve the health of the population,” said Kaufmann.

He joined UNLV last year after more than 30 years at the National Institutes of Health, where he became involved in clinical trials for what he calls “orphan” areas of health research. Those are “underappreciated, underdeveloped, underutilized interventions and treatments that promote disease prevention,” in contrast to more traditional clinical trials involving drugs, gene therapy, or medical devices. 

Many subjects within the School of Integrated Health Sciences — nutrition, kinesiology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and brain health — involve important components of behavioral risk factors and self-management.

“These are areas that are ripe for crystallizing into something that is bigger than what any single investigator would do. So there’s an opportunity here to build on what we already know and to create something that’s more robust here at UNLV,” Kaufmann said.

Format of the Forums

The first forum was held in during the spring semester in person. Two to three experts are invited to give presentations, and Kaufmann facilitates a Q&A. More unstructured exchanges of ideas about clinical trials follow as researchers informally discuss both the accomplishments and shortcomings of their work.

“This is what we did. These are the problems that we encountered. This is what we could do better. These are the challenges that we need to meet,” he explained. “So it’s a more open discussion of how can we advance health and health care practice.”

Knowledge generation is rarely linear, advances are mostly incremental, and breakthroughs are difficult to recognize in real time. So pulling from diverse fields is Kaufmann’s only rule when considering and inviting presenters.

 “They’re really a miscellaneous collection that is kind of opportunistic. Who’s the available speaker. Who’s doing good work? What’s something that's new that has come up? … Maybe there’s a lesson that’s different for each participant in a session. Different people get different things from these kinds of presentations.”

The work of a psychology researcher in the College of Liberal Arts, for example, might interest someone in the school who's performing a clinical trial, Kaufmann says. And he encourages topic suggestions from across campus

“There are commonalities, and this presents an opportunity for people to get to know one another and to understand what their contribution might be in collaborations. So we put a lot of emphasis, and certainly the university has put a lot of emphasis, on creating groups for interdisciplinary research. This is an informal way to achieve that same objective.”

This fall, Kauffman expects a forum to explore “Cannabis, Health, and Harm Reduction” with Cinnamon Bidwell, director of University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Research and Education Addressing Cannabis and Health.

In October, Jeffrey L. Cummings, a professor of brain health at the School of Integrated Health, will discuss the challenges of conducting clinical trials on Alzheimer’s and other brain disorders.

While past forums were in person, Kaufmann is gravitating toward virtual sessions to increase access, develop richer content, and hold costs down while tapping out-of-state experts.

A Way to Keep Up

By fostering interdisciplinary work, the forums are a way for researchers to land grant money, expand clinical trials in the community, and promote the growth of UNLV as a Top Tier research institution.

At the very least, they help experts to stay on top of developments, Kaufmann said.

“I don’t care if you’re a particle physicist, an astronomer, a chemist, or a behavioral scientist. Keeping up with the developments in your field is key,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for people to get together and keep up with the literature and with the insights that we can obtain by speaking to our colleagues — part and parcel of the academic enterprise.”

Watch for announcements on the next Randomized Clinical Trials Forum in UNLV Today. To suggest a forum topic, contact Peter Kauffman.