Susan Halabi recently started her term as president of the Society for Clinical Trials (SCT). The SCT (www.sctweb.org) is an international society with membership spanning all disciplines that are critical to the field including biostatistics, clinical areas, IT and systems, data management, ethics, regulatory bodies, behavioral science, research coordination, patient partners, health outcomes and others. Members come from academia, industry, government and non-profit research and advocacy groups.
Dr. Halabi stated that her goals are to build on the strengths of the SCT as a strong, well established multi-disciplinary society by increasing membership, creating and supporting connections with other statistical and medical organizations, promoting international collaboration both among researchers and institutions, and advocating more minority participation. In addition, she seeks to foster innovative designs and trial conduct to accommodate changes in clinical treatments by encouraging multidisciplinary collaboration through online seminars and workshops, mentoring the next generation of clinical trialists through involvement in training grants and sharing relevant RFAs with SCT members. Finally, SCT will support data sharing of clinical and molecular data by identification of critical url sites and creating a centralized link under the SCT web page.
A critical issue that has emerged in light of the COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of accurate communication regarding the rigor, significance, importance and results of related clinical trials. The general public does not have an in depth understanding of how medical research is conducted and the SCT seeks to ensure that research findings are communicated in a manner that the average reader would understand so that sensationalized myths and headlines are critically considered and not taken at face value.
Dr. Halabi previously served as SCT Fellows Committee Chair and was inducted as a Fellow in the SCT in 2014. Three other Duke B&B faculty members are also Fellows to the SCT: Stephen George, PhD; Kerry Lee, PHD; and Frank Rockhold, PhD.