Since 2020, UCI MIND has collaborated with the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute (ATRI) at USC to lead a comprehensive training program that educates early-career researchers worldwide about best practices for ADRD clinical trials.
Dr. Grill is Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Neurobiology and Behavior at UCI. He is the Carla Liggett and Arthur S. Liggett, MD, Endowed Chair, in honor of Frank M. LaFerla in the School of Biological Sciences at UCI. Dr. Grill holds leadership positions at UCI and in national Alzheimer’s disease research networks. He is the Chair of the Internal Ethics Committee for the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study. He co-Chairs the same Committee and co-leads the Recruitment Engagement and Retention Unit for the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC). He is the Co-Director of the Institute on Methods and Protocols for Advancement of Clinical Trials in ADRD (IMPACT-AD) and serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) and Hilarity for Charity (HFC). He is also the Clinical Trials section editor for Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Rema Raman is a Professor of Neurology at Keck School of Medicine of USC and the Director of the Biostatistics Section and the Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention (RER) Section at the USC Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute (ATRI). She is the co-lead of the Biostatistics Unit, the RER Unit and the Inclusion, Diversity and Education in AD clinical Trials (IDEA-CT) Unit for the NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC).
Dr. Raman has focused her academic career in the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials in neurology. She has extensive experience as a collaborative biostatistician and clinical trialist, serving in the leadership team of several highly integrated and interdisciplinary research programs conducting clinical research in Alzheimer¹s disease, stroke, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury. Her primary statistical research interests are in correlated and missing data issues, design and analysis of efficient clinical trials and cohort studies, centralized and adaptive statistical monitoring approaches, effective safety monitoring and recruitment and retention science.
IMPACT-AD is a one week training course held every year in La Jolla CA. The program is led by Drs. Joshua Grill and Rema Raman (USC) and is taught by several of the nation’s top experts in the conduct of clinical trials for ADRD. Drs. David Sultzer and Dan Gillen are part of a smaller group of key faculty responsible for providing mentoring to the scholars.
IMPACT-AD was founded to train the next generation of ADRD clinical trialists, to ensure that investments in discovery yield outcomes for patients and families. Our goal is to provide education and tools to establish a national cohort of qualified investigators to guide the field toward improved therapies.
Equally importantly, we are focused on diversifying the ADRD trial workforce. This diversity is manifold: it includes the demographic characteristics of investigators (age, race, ethnicity, etc.), but also their specialties (physicians, psychologists, statisticians, etc.), backgrounds (rural, urban, etc.), and career stage or current position (current AD Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC) site, non-ACTC academic site, non-academic site).
IMPACT-AD will be successful if it produces an outstanding, well-trained, diverse, and knowledgeable cohort of collaborative investigators who will carry the mantle of the National Plan to Address AD.
IMPACT-AD will leverage the outstanding collection of investigators, including members of the ACTC and beyond. National and international leaders in ADRD trials will gather annually to provide a unique, interactive, cutting edge educational experience in ADRD trials. We offer two tracks for those interested in advancing their careers in ADRD trials.
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