21^st May, Yichang, Hubei

In the wake of the International Day for Clinical Trials, 18-19^th May, 2024, the national training workshop on TB clinical research methodology and practice as well as the Annual Conference of the China TB Clinical Trials Consortium (CTCTC) was successfully held in Yichang, Hubei province. This workshop was organized in concert by the Beijing Chest Hospital, Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital, Clinical Center on TB, China CDC, Yichang No.3 People’s Hospital and the Innovation Alliance (IATB). 

In opening, Prof. Liang Li, deputy director of Beijing Chest Hospital pointed out that despite great achievements, TB prevention and control still faces great challenges in China. Technological breakthroughs in novel anti-TB drugs, regimens, novel diagnostics and vaccines are key to the eventual realization of the END-TB targets in this country and beyond. To bring these technologies from R&D pipelines to the frontline clinicians and patients, we need to produce high quality clinical evidence by conducting ethically sound, carefully designed and adequately powered clinical researches, such as multi-centered Randomized Clinical Trials (RCT), which is the gold standard of clinical research and evidence generation. This training workshop focuses on clinical research methodology and their practices, its ultimate aim is to improving the anti-TB treatment by generating high quality clinical evidence.

The two-day training workshop revolved around clinical research methodology and their application. 19 speakers of differed backgrounds were invited to cover a multitude of topics that range from clinical research methodology, research design, lab quality assurance and management, GCP standards and research ethics compliance, statistical analysis and data management, online database construction among others. The training workshop put an emphasis on illustrating concepts with real world cases and studies so that trainees would be exposed to first hand experiences when it comes to conducting TB clinical research. 

The training workshop has been an instant success with many positive feedbacks received from trainees and speaker. All believe that the workshop is tailored to address some of the most acute challenges faced by TB clinicians when it comes to conducting clinical study and that this workshop should become a regular platform into the future.

Report by Zi Chen, Innovation Alliance