The Reporter: Oct 1994, Vol.5, No.3
Clinical Trials News

The Office of Clinical Trials has named Dr. David Bickers, the Carl Truman Nelson Professor and Chairman of Dermatology since January, as the new chairman of the Clinical Trials Committee. The announcement was made by Michael Leahey, director of the Office of Clinical Trials.

"Dr. Bickers is uniquely qualified to hold this position in that he has held leadership positions on both the academic side and the hospital side. He is an established investigator who has lots of clinical trials experience, has led a clinical department, and served as associate dean while at Case Western. Additionally, he received his residency training at Columbia-Presbyterian so he is familiar with the institution and its needs and interests but, having been away for a while, he brings another strength to his selection-a fresh eye. In essence, he has all the right credentials, yet comes to the position without an agenda so can provide an objective analysis of the needs of the medical center."

Formed two years ago when the clinical trials office was created, the Clinical Trials Committee is charged with making recommendations that will improve the infrastructure for promoting clinical trials at the medical center. The committee consists of 24 senior investigators and administrators representing clinical departments in the medical school and the hospital.

Tumor Registry

Stuart Herna has been named director of the CPMC Tumor Registry. The registry, re-established after a three-year hiatus, is a joint initiative of Columbia and Presbyterian through the Office of Clinical Trials and with the cooperation of Dr. Alison Estabrook, former Irving clinical research scholar, who has maintained a breast tumor registry on her own.

"I am delighted to have the opportunity to come to a prominent institution to work with a team of well-regarded professionals to launch a cancer center program that meets the American College of Surgeons guidelines," says Mr. Herna, formerly tumor registry supervisor at Montefiore Medical Center.

The Tumor Registry, located in Vanderbilt basement near the pharmacy, will be fully operational Jan. 1, 1995, when it will begin cataloging tissue samples.

Research Pharmacy

The fully computerized research pharmacy for investigational drugs opens this month on Atchley 7. Robert B. MacArthur has been appointed research pharmacist. He has a Pharm.D. degree from St. John's University College of Pharmacy and has been director of Clinical Horizons Research and consultant and assistant director of product labeling and compliance for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals.

Correction

Because of an error in material provided to the Reporter for the May issue, the list of winners of 1994-95 grants from the Office of Clinical Trials Research and Development Fund was incomplete. The project "MRI Imaging of Hippocampal and Cerebral Cortical Changes in Infants and Children with Febrile Seizures" is shared by two co- principal investigators, Dr. Dale Hesdorffer, a postdoc research fellow in the Sergievsky Center, and Dr. Stephen Chan, assistant professor of radiology.