Clinical Trial Networks Working Group (CTN WG)
Meet scientific expert Dr. Steve Webb from the Clinical Trial Networks Working Group (CTN WG) who provides unique insight into how clinical trials can be modified and effective in an epidemic.
For our first article in our “Meet the Expert” series, we’d like to present Professor Steve Webb who is a member of the GloPID-R Clinical Trial Networks working group, representing the Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE).
Dr. Steve Webb is a Senior Staff Specialist in Intensive Care Medicine at Royal Perth Hospital and a Professor of Critical Care Research in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is a trialist who designs and conducts clinical trials that generate evidence to improve patient care.
Dr. Steve Webb said: “The ultimate purpose of clinical trials is to generate evidence that clinicians, policymakers, and health consumers can use to improve health outcomes. It’s a pragmatic activity that is most effective when it starts not from the perspective of the researcher but that of the end-user of the evidence. This is particularly true, as well as challenging, when the users are clinicians and policymakers who must respond to a current, or future, epidemic or pandemic where generating evidence is time-critical.”
Dr. Webb is a recipient of more than $90M in research funding and has published manuscripts in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, and The Lancet. He has an interest in novel trial designs including Bayesian adaptive platform and cluster cross-over designs.
Last October, Dr. Webb presented a webinar “Managing Uncertainty in Clinical: the Role of Adaptive Trial Designs” for the GloPID-R scientific community.
Clinical trials can be modifiable and implementable before a pandemic occurs. Dr. Webb discusses how adaptive trial design allows design to be changed, as specified in a protocol, according to the data that has been accrued.
About the Clinical Trial Networks (CTN) Working Group
GloPID-R developed this working group created to identify synergies and future collaborations between clinical trial networks. The CTN working group facilitates exchanges on challenges and solutions and the shares best practices through regular meetings and its webinar series.
CTN WG contact: gail.carson@ndm.ox.ac.uk
