ICTR July 2020 Newsletter                             
In This Issue

  • Clinical Research Center Resources Available
  • New CTSA KL2 Awardee
  • National Covid19 Data Collaboratory
  • Lifecourse Zoom Seminar Series Kick-off
  • New IRB Policies and Procedures Updates
Einstein Returns to Campus!
Clinical Research Center Available for Research Visits
The Clinical Research Centers at Einstein and Montefiore campuses support protocols in epidemiology, genetics, general medicine, neurology, women’s health, pediatrics, psychiatry/behavioral sciences, infectious diseases and surgery. The units see ~4000 out-patient visits annually, intensive procedures, and first-in-human research and have resources available for your clinical research needs. The units are located at the Van Etten Building on the Einstein campus and Moses Research Tower on the Montefiore campus.


To learn more about the Clinical Research Centers, click here and access services here .
New CTSA Junior Faculty Scholar
We are pleased to announce one of this year’s ICTR Scholars. The  KL2 awards   provide support for mentored research career development to junior faculty who have recently completed professional training and who are commencing translational and/or clinical research.

Project Title: The Association Between Hypothalamic Inflammation and Aging Phenotype in Humans
Mentors: Sofiya Milman MD MSc and Michael Lipton MD PhD
Turning Covid19 Clinical Data into Knowledge
The NIH has launched a centralized, secure analytics platform to store and study vast amounts of medical record data from people diagnosed with coronavirus disease across the country. It is part of an effort, called the  National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C ) , to help scientists analyze these data to understand the disease and develop treatments. The N3C harnesses the extensive resources of the NCATS-funded CTSA .

There currently are 35 collaborating sites across the country, including our own Center for Health Data Innovations (CHDI) here at Montefiore, led by Parsa Mirhaji MD, PhD . Diverse data from individuals tested for Covid19 and related diseases are provided by institutions and organizations that execute the  NCATS Data Transfer Agreement .  NCATS is taking multiple security and privacy measures such as implementing user registration, federated login, data use agreements with institutions and data use requests with users. CHDI also provides Covid19 data directly to our investigators without having to use N3C, but the latter platform will enable new collaborative NIH grant applications that can benefit from nationwide data.   For more details, see the N3C FAQs .

Learn more about the N3C and view a demonstration of the platform .
Evaluation Team Welcomes Intern for Covid19 Evaluation Project
The Einstein-Montefiore ICTR Evaluation team is collaborating with the Princeton University Pace Center for Civic Engagement and Princeton Internships in Civic Service to welcome a summer intern, Lawrence Chiang, who will assist in the qualitative evaluation efforts being conducted for a Montefiore OHS Covid19 Response Evaluation Project. This rapid qualitative assessment of Montefiore’s implementation and scale-up of a call center to support the more than 16,000 frontline health care providers was initiated in late May and will provide critical information about the institution’s capacity to respond to the emergent advent of Covid19, which severely affected New York City and the Bronx. Entering his senior year of college in Fall 2020 towards a Bachelor of Arts, Lawrence is also an accomplished violinist who has been accepted into Thomas Jefferson’s Medical School under its early assurance program. Lawrence will work closely with evaluation team members  Dr. David Lounsbury (PI), Dr. Alison Karasz (Qualitative Methods Expert), and Claudia Lechuga (Director, ICTR Evaluation).
Office of Human Research Affairs and IRB Updates
The office of Human Research Affairs (OHRA) and the IRB have released a number of updates to the iRIS software. Many of these have been in response to Covid19. Others have been in response to policy updates as the Human Research Protection Program undergoes accreditation. Updates have been made in the areas of:
  • IRB application
  • Progress reports
  • Approval letters
  • Policies and Procedures
  • PI responsibilities
  • Data and Safety Monitoring guidelines
  • Institutional approvals
  • Covid19 research involving Montefiore associates (or their data) as a target population
  • IBC review of Covid19 samples
  • Covid19 data governance

To view a complete list of updates, click here .

If you have questions or concerns about recent updates to iRIS, the IRB review process or the OHRA’s policies and procedures, please email irb@einsteinmed.org .  
Life Course Webinar Series
The Center for Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Life Course Working Group has designed six webinars as part of a webinar series, Charting the Life Course: an Interdisciplinary Blueprint as the foundation to a visual life course research toolkit that will introduce investigators to conducting life course research with complexity science. 

The next webinar, Creating systematic processes for longitudinal integration of datasets across the lifespan representing multiple levels of exposure from physiological to sociologic will take place on July 16th at 11am.

Zoom Meeting ID: 928-8476-1841
Call-in numbers: +1 646 876 9923, +1 669 900 6833

Attend the Charting the Life Course  webinar series  to learn how recent advances in computational analytics, computer science, and data collection can be used to enhance life course research. This webinar series was developed by the  NCATS Lifespan Enterprise Committee . To view the full list of webinars in this series, click here .
Trial Innovation Network Webinars
The Trial Innovation Network offers webinars on a range of research topics from regulatory, protocol development, data management, and many others. Screencasts and slideshows of past webinars can be viewed on-demand in the archives at trialinnovationnetwork.org. Contact Zoe Tsagaris, Clinical Trials Network Manager to learn more at zoe.tsagaris@einsteinmed.org .
CTI Program Webinar
The Office of Biotechnology and Business Development will be hosting a Zoom webinar, Insights into Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) Program , on July 23rd at 2:00pm. At this event,  Dr. Gerald Schipps  (Sr. Director, External Science & Innovation at Pfizer) and  Dr. Manjula Donepudi  (Director, Alliance Management at Pfizer) will provide overview on the Program. It is a great opportunity to learn about the program and interact with the team.

Meeting ID: 984 8380 5409 
Mobile: +16465588656,,98483805409# US (New York)

Contact  nilam.sinha@einsteinmed.or g  for any questions.
July Intellectual Property Seminar
The Office of Biotechnology and Business Development will host its upcoming seminar, I P Protection Strategies for Therapeutic and Diagnostic Antibodies, as part of its IP & Coffee Seminar Series  (the 3 rd  Wednesday of each month) on July 15th at 3 pm. At this event, US Patent Attorney & Partner at Foley Hoag LLP., (Dr. Brendan Jones) will share his knowledge on obtaining intellectual property (IP) protection against newly developed or repurposed antibodies for use as therapeutics and insights into the COVID-19 antibody landscape.

Please email  biotech@einsteinmed.org  in advance for registration and to obtain specific log-in details.
Spotlight on Success
Einstein-Montefiore investigators continue to succeed in obtaining funding. Some of these investigators with new grant awards are (from left to right):

John Condeelis PhD , Professor, Departments of Anatomy & Structural Biology and Surgery, Thomas Rohan MBBS, PhD, DHSc , Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Population Health, and Helena Blumen PhD , Assistant Professor, Departments of Medicine (Geriatrics) and Neurology.
Research in the Headlines
Harold and Muriel Block Institute for Clinical and Translational Research