The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation
created the North American Clinical Trails Network (NACTN) in 2004 to
move promising treatments from the laboratory to the clinic in a way that
insures patient safety and meaningful data. NACTN is a network of hospitals that is enrolling newly
injured patients into a data registry, defining and adhering to standard
protocols and providing the infrastructure and highly skilled personnel needed
to conduct trials of therapy for spinal cord injury. Read more about NACTN.
NACTN meeting
NACTN has a number mandated tasks as part of
its Department of Defense award. One of those tasks is something we call NOA,
the Neurological Outcomes Assessment initiative to develop more targeted,
sensitive outcome measures so we can better determine the effectiveness of
therapies tested in clinical trials.
On February 25th, an organizing committee
of scientists and clinicians with expertise in this
arena met at The Methodist Hospital in Houston to plan for a May international NOA
workshop. Participants will be invited to collaborate on the identification of
specific outcome instruments and their development.
Texas Neurosurgeon of the Year
We are proud to report that Dr. Robert G. Grossman (2nd from right in the above picture) was named
Neurosurgeon of the Year by the Texas Association of Neurological Surgeons. He is very involved in NACTN
.
Photo:
James
Guest, MD, University of Miami
Elizabeth
Toups, RN, NACTN Study Coordinator, The Methodist Hospital, Houston,
TX
Ralph
Frankowski, PhD, University of TX School of Public Health, Houston,
TX
Robert
Grossman, MD, Lead NACTN
Principal Investigator, The Methodist Hospital, Houston,
TX
Andrei
Krassioukov, MD, PhD, University of British Columbia, Vancouver,
Canada
Seated:
Keith Bureau, PhD, University of TX School of Public Health,
Houston, TX
Not appearing in the photo:
Susan
Harkema, Ph.D., University of Louisville, Michael Fehlings , MD, PhD , University of Toronto and Susan
Howley, EVP Research, Reeve Foundation
