Many barriers make translating discoveries in the lab into effective new treatments difficult — such as a lack of resources, poor communication between disciplines, and complex regulations.
"This is where iTHRIV comes in," explains Karen Johnston, MD, MSc, director of the Integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia. "We help overcome these obstacles to find solutions to complex health challenges for our patients and communities."
The goal of iTHRIV is to empower healthcare providers, community members, researchers, and learners across Virginia.
A vascular neurologist at UVA Health, Johnston also conducts her own research to improve interventions for patients with large strokes.
Learn more about iTHRIV and Johnston's stroke research in this video and Q&A.
What are you working on right now?
Right now, iTHRIV is expanding our support for clinical and translational researchers. This includes new data and informatics support as iTHRIV broadens offerings for data management, storage, analysis, and integration with other systems for both private data and for public data.
All of this work supports collaboration and innovation. These resources will facilitate neuroscience as well as other research across the entire institution and beyond.
iTHRIV is also rolling out several new training programs including one that will help NIH K grant awardees (mentored awards) successfully compete for NIH R awards (independent awards), which are the gold standard research grants.
In my stroke research work, we are beginning an NIH-funded stroke platform infrastructure to run multiple stroke clinical trials within the same research platform. This program is called StrokeNet Thrombectomy Endovascular Platform (STEP).
STEP provides more opportunities for a patient with a large stroke from large vessel occlusion to participate in clinical trials if they want. It allows greater efficiencies for stroke clinicians and researchers to learn more quickly about what interventions lead to better patient outcomes. I am helping to lead the team who designs these STEP research trials.
What are the most intriguing applications of your work?
iTHRIV is creating new data-related infrastructure that makes it easier for our researchers to collaborate and discover new information in their data.
Our infrastructure also helps them stay compliant with all the growing and changing data-related regulations. We build in protections for them so they can focus on their research.
The iTHRIV Research Data Commons is a private data enclave, while the iTHRIV Public Data Commons is open to our public partners and communities. The Public Data Commons really encourages our research teams to work directly with the communities who will be impacted by their science.
iTHRIV continues to provide enhancements to these resources as the field of data science and bioinformatics continues to evolve. Our whole job is to help make their research easier, more rigorous, and more impactful.
What recent discovery/paper/presentation has impacted the way you think?
Because I trained as a clinical trialist 30 years ago, I am fascinated with the new approach to decentralized clinical trials. In my day, every patient came to the academic hospital for every clinical research visit.
The FDA has issued a guidance on decentralized clinical trials that will support patients enrolling in clinical trials from their homes, their communities, or the primary care providers office.
The NIH director just initiated a pilot program of a primary care network allowing community providers to lead clinical research. This is a whole new paradigm for how we do clinical and translational research and it will allow more diverse populations of participants to be invited to participate in research.
Clinical trialists across the country are now evolving the way they think about clinical trial design as these new approaches make it easier for many who want to participate to do so closer to home.
What made you choose UVA Health as the place to do your research?
I came to UVA Health 30 years ago to become an expert vascular neurologist and do the most rigorous clinical trials. Even after all this time, I learn something new from my colleagues every single day. Doing great research with other brilliant researchers and helping early career researchers be successful makes this the best job ever.
How did you become interested in your area of research?
I became interested in neurological clinical trials as a resident at the University of Rochester where they were leading Parkinson’s disease trials during my training. I did some elective time with the biostatisticians and clinical trialists there and was hooked. I have loved thinking about clinical trial design ever since those early days and am excited about how the field has evolved.
