UC Health Clinical Trials Office Celebrates 1-Year Mark

The UC Health Clinical Trials Office didn’t have to look far when it needed entertainment for an event celebrating its one-year anniversary on Thursday, Aug. 11: Stephen Strakowski, MD, director of clinical research at UC Physicians and vice president of research at UC Health, provided his own band.

When he wasn’t playing bass for the band, Some Assembly Required, on classics like "China Grove,” "Already Gone” and "A Hard Day’s Night,” Strakowski was helping Melinda Muenich, Clinical Trials Office director, spread the word about the office and its services to attendees who enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and cocktails at the Kingsgate Marriott Conference Hotel on the UC medical campus.

"The centralized Clinical Trials Office was created to help coordinate operation of industry-sponsored clinical research throughout UC Physicians and more recently UC Health,” Strakowski said. "It is a critical component to provide the necessary support to advance our clinical research to the very best in the region and the nation.”

The office provides a number of services to help UC Health researchers perform clinical trials, an essential component of bringing research discoveries from the lab bench to the bedside. Among those services are marketing and business development; study design and protocol development; study placement; contracts and budgets; and participant recruitment.

"We have made some tremendous accomplishments in the first year,” Muenich said. "Our primary goal was to get the contract process streamlined and make our existing services a bit more efficient. The upcoming year will be focused on getting out to the departments and finding out what services researchers need over and above what we currently have to offer.

"The bottom line is we’re a support office. We’re here to help facilitate research, so whatever researchers need to conduct their research we’re willing to see if we can offer that as a service.”

To contact the UC Health Clinical Trials Office, call (513) 475-8035. Muenich can be reached via email at Melinda.Muenich@ucphysicians.com.