Events Calendar

Would you like to help to determine the topics and questions to be discussed at upcoming Museum of Science/Tufts CTSI public forums on health research?

Tufts CTSI and Museum of Science, Boston are planning four public forums on important topics in health research. At each forum, we will invite the public to engage in interactive and facilitated discussions as they work together to make decisions or solve a problem.

We need your help to choose a topic for deliberation at the first forum, to be held at the Museum of Science in fall 2019.

We are looking for people with different values, opinions, and ideas to come together at an all-day Topic Selection Workshop on Friday, March 1 to select a forum topic that will help inform local researchers about the needs, concerns, and ideas of the community.

Workshop participants will hear lightning talks from community members and experts in the fields of addiction, precision medicine, and exercise/nutrition research and form small groups to discuss, narrow down, and select questions that will be important and interesting for the public to deliberate. By involving community partners and other stakeholders in the beginning of the process, we hope to leave this workshop with the topic of the fall 2019 forum and a plan to move forward to further engage the local community in science and research.

Speakers will include:

• Christina Economos, PhD, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
• Johnny Kung, PhD, Personal Genetics Education Project
• Vivien Morris, MS, RD, MPH, LDN, Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition
• Elizabeth Reardon Hinkley, MPH, Health Resources in Action
• Sharon Reif, PhD, Brandeis University

Details

Friday, March 1, 8:30AM-5:00PM (breakfast and lunch will be provided)
Tufts Center for Medical Education, Room 114 East
145 Harrison Avenue, Boston MA

Registration

Registration is required. Please register here by February 25.

Tufts CTSI Professional Education & Expectation for Course Participants

Tufts CTSI’s Professional Education programs provide non-degree continuing education and training for clinical and translational research professionals from all Tufts CTSI partners and beyond.

Course enrollment priority is given to researchers from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. If your participation needs to be approved by your supervisor or a person responsible for your time release, you may provide their contact information when you register for the program.

This course is provided free of charge, and was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of health, Award Number UL1TR002544. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Need help finding your voice and engaging your audience? Want to improve your communication skills to convey complex information to others?

Join Tufts CTSI for an exciting two-part workshop, Advancing Confidence and Connection in Public Speaking. In two 90-minute interactive sessions, Bridget Kathleen O’Leary, MFA, Visiting Artist in Directing at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences, will lead guide attendees through the process of finding confidence in their own voices.

Part One of the workshop will teach you how to pitch your research to audiences large and small through increased confidence and audience engagement techniques.

Part Two will help you to deliver dry information in a clear and engaging way, creating a narrative flow and conversation with an audience.

After attending Parts One and Two of this workshop, participants should be able to:

• Recognize how voice and speech impact efficient communication
• Practice elements of relaxation, resonance, and expressiveness during public speaking
• Recall techniques to command the attention of, and engagement, with their audience
• Identify techniques to communicate ideas and objectives with clarity and authenticity

Participants are expected to attend both 90-minute sessions and should bring to Part Two a 2-3 minute sample piece (lecture, presentation, pitch, or persuasive argument).

Details

Part One: Tuesday, March 12, 3:30-5:00PM, 8th Floor Large Conference Room, 35 Kneeland Street, Boston MA

Part Two: Friday, March 15, 2:30-4:00PM, 8th Floor Large Conference Room, 35 Kneeland Street, Boston MA

Registration

Please register here.

Tufts CTSI Professional Education & Expectation for Course Participants

Tufts CTSI’s Professional Education programs provide non-degree continuing education and training for clinical and translational research professionals from all Tufts CTSI partners and beyond.

Course enrollment priority is given to researchers from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. If your participation needs to be approved by your supervisor or a person responsible for your time release, you may provide their contact information when you register for the program.

This course is provided free of charge, and was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of health, Award Number UL1TR002544. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Interested in addiction research? Want to meet collaborators and develop grant proposals?

Join Tufts CTSI for our Addiction Research Symposium Plus on Wednesday, March 13 at Tufts University’s Boston Health Sciences Campus. This interactive event will focus on nascent research projects with the goals of assisting teams to develop research project proposals for future grant submissions and engaging all event participants in team science approaches to further catalyze research ideas.

By the end of this interactive symposium, event participants should be able to:

• Identify common regulatory concerns surrounding the unique populations involved in addiction research.
• Recognize how research teams develop research projects, from concept toward a written funding proposal.
• Identify Tufts CTSI team-based translational science resources that can help advance a research project.
• Articulate the value of gathering peer and expert feedback during the development of fundable proposal.

Selected Proposals

The following projects will be presented and discussed:

• Oxygenating the Addicted Brain Through Aerobic Exercise, Eduardo Fontes, PhD, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences
• Incorporating Acupuncture into the Continuum of Care for People with Severe Opioid Use Disorder, Barbara Herbert, MD, Column Health and Tufts University School of Medicine
• Intranasal Glial-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) Gene Therapy for Opioid Use Disorder, Barbara Waszczak, PhD, Northeastern University Bouve College of Health Sciences; Emmanuel Pothos, PhD, Tufts University School of Medicine
• Salivary Gene Analysis and Brain MRI to Understand Hypothalamic and Reward Pathway Dysregulation Affecting Oral Feeding in Infants with Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome, Elizabeth Yen, MD; Jill Maron, MD, and Jonathan Davis, MD, Tufts Medical Center Pediatrics Department

Details

Wednesday, March 13, 9:00AM-3:00PM
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Room 216A
145 Harrison Avenue, Boston MA

Registration

To attend, please register here by March 4, 2019.

Need guidance on developing your recruitment and retention plan?

Join us for an hour-long workshop, Developing Recruitment and Retention Plans. This session will take place during lunch hour, so please feel free to bring your lunch.

Recruitment and retention are critical to the success of a research study; however, generating a plan that considers cost, target audience, best practices, and retention of participants can be challenging during the study development phase of research. This workshop, led by Sara Folta, PhD, Director of Integrating Underrepresented Populations in Research and C. Phillip Oettgen, Project Manager of the Recruitment and Retention Support Unit (RRSU) seeks to raise awareness about the key elements and major considerations of a recruitment and retention plan.

After attending this event, participants should be able to do the following on their own:

• Describe how to set realistic recruitment goals for research studies
• Explain how to identify and best reach different target audiences, including underrepresented populations
• Recognize realistic expectations and knowledge of resources
• Discuss challenges to retention and key strategies to improve it.

Details

Thursday, March 14, noon-1:00PM
Tufts CTSI, 35 Kneeland Street, 8th Floor Conference Room
Boston MA

Registration

This program is open to research coordinators and investigators in clinical and non-clinical fields. Any research team members interested in recruitment and retention are welcome.

To attend, please register here.

Tufts CTSI Professional Education & Expectation for Course Participants

Tufts CTSI’s Professional Education programs provide non-degree continuing education and training for clinical and translational research professionals from all Tufts CTSI partners and beyond.

Course enrollment priority is given to researchers from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. If your participation needs to be approved by your supervisor or a person responsible for your time release, you may provide their contact information when you register for the program.

This course is provided free of charge, and was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of health, Award Number UL1TR002544. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Are you new to drug development research? Interested in learning more about obtaining FDA approval of an investigational drug product?

In this one-day drug development workshop, two groups will ‘role-play’ multidisciplinary drug development teams attempting to bring a new chemical entity from the idea stage all the way to review by the FDA. Each participant will be assigned a specific role on a typical oncology study team (i.e., project manager, discovery/pharmaceutical scientist, drug safety, regulatory, or market assessment specialist) and will serve as the expert in a particular component of the process.

The 3-D Oncology simulation relies on a computer program to generate ‘results’ from the scientific experiments and clinical studies that the team will conduct. For this program, Pfizer Oncology will have several medical facilitators available to participate.

This will be a great professional development opportunity for those new to drug development research or looking to learn more. Please note this program is not CME accredited.

Some key take home messages from the program include:

• The oncology drug development process is complicated and time consuming.
• The oncology drug development process is costly.
• Drug development is competitive.
• Drug development requires teamwork.
• Drug development does not always produce viable products.
• Managing both the science and regulatory environment is critical in the drug development process.

Details

Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 9:00AM-3:30PM
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston MA

Registration

Admission to the workshop is by application only. To apply, please register here by March 6, 2019.

We are recruiting 16-18 early career investigators, clinical and/or research fellows, and other research staff. Admission to the workshop is by application only and priority will be given to researchers and clinical fellows from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. A background in oncology research is preferred though not required. All must commit to being an active participant in the full session. Once registration is full, you may be placed on a waitlist.

Attendance and active participation in the full workshop (9AM–3:30PM) is critical to this group-based workshop format. You will be expected to actively engage with your assigned role, participate in group discussion, and respectfully work as an active member of your oncology study team.

Tufts CTSI Professional Education & Expectation for Course Participants

Tufts CTSI’s Professional Education programs provide non-degree continuing education and training for clinical and translational research professionals from all Tufts CTSI partners and beyond.

Course enrollment priority is given to researchers from Tufts CTSI partner institutions. If your participation needs to be approved by your supervisor or a person responsible for your time release, you may provide their contact information when you register for the program.

This course is provided free of charge, and was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of health, Award Number UL1TR002544. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Plain Language for Health: Writing and Design for Health Research and Practice is for motivated individuals and teams working to communicate health information in ways people can understand.

The two-day workshop on Thursday, March 28 and Friday, March 29, 9:00AM-4:00PM, features training with health literacy and plain language experts from Tufts University School of Medicine and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and an evening networking reception sponsored by CommunicateHealth.

Speakers from Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Tufts Medical Center (CTSI) and Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard (MRCT) will lead interactive discussions on how to apply principles of health literacy and plain language to health research and informed consent. The workshop will teach actionable skills and techniques to improve community engagement, build transparency and trust, and connect with patients, research participants, and the community.

Presenting Sponsors

• Tufts CTSI, accelerating the translation of research into clinical use, medical practice, and impact on health
• Public Health and Community  Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM), preparing health professionals to eliminate health inequities, reduce the burden of disease and injury, promote mental and physical health, and prevent global threats to the environment

Contributing Sponsors

• Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center (MRCT), engages diverse stakeholders to define emerging issues in global clinical trials and creates ethical and actionable solutions
• CommunicateHealth, award-winning communications firm specializing in health behavior change
• Tufts Health Literacy Leadership Institute (HLLI), internationally known for health literacy professional development and leadership to eliminate health disparities and improve population health