“An estimated 80 percent of U.S. studies do not meet enrollment goals. This under-enrollment in a study can lead to scientific challenges, ethical concerns, financial difficulties and lack of diversity in trial populations.

“Not meeting enrollment targets is a huge impediment to the advancement of science in every field,” said Jacoby, who recently became the director of the Participant Recruitment Program at the Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UCSF.

To help address the issue, UCSF has launched a tool that could make it easier for researchers and willing study participants to find each other.

When clinical trials fail to enroll enough applicants, the effects can be numerous. One large issue is that under-enrollment causes difficulties in securing funding or collaborators for future trials.

Knowing the challenges of clinical study recruitment, Jacoby is excited about the launch of UCSF Clinical Trials, a trial-finding tool that could make it easier for her and other researchers to meet recruitment goals by helping people find and connect to clinical studies.

Currently the government website www.clinicaltrials.gov contains information about thousands of studies using human participants, but the problem with that site, Grandis said, is that it is difficult to navigate for patients and researchers alike, it includes trials that may be located far away, and it often doesn’t include contact information for someone interested in joining in a trial.

“UCSF Clinical Trials basically takes all the UCSF-specific information from that government database, expands upon it and makes it much more user-friendly.

UCSF Clinical Trials, which was built from the ground up, is aimed at giving the public a way to interact with UCSF.

Beyond simply a search tool for finding clinical trials, the website includes information on it for researchers, patients and the public about how clinical trials work, what they are and what is involved in participating”.  – Mitzi Baker, excerpted and edited from her article titled, “Dearth of Clinical Study Participants Leads UCSF to Launch New Trial Finder Tool” @ UCSF.com click here to read the article in its entirety. [end]

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