We'll have to see whether they are even testing neuronal cascade of death stuff.
http://phys.org/wire-news/148315263/nih-network-revolutionizes-stroke-clinical-research.html
A network of 25 regional stroke centers working with nearby satellite
facilities will span the country, have teams of researchers representing
every medical specialty needed for stroke care and will address the
three prongs of stroke research: prevention, treatment and recovery. The
Centers were announced today by the National Institutes of Health.
"The new system is intended to streamline stroke research, by
centralizing approval and review, lessening time and costs of clinical
trials, and assembling a comprehensive data sharing system," said Petra
Kaufmann, M.D., the associate director for clinical research at the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
NINDS, which will fund and manage the NIH Stroke Trials Network, or
NIH StrokeNet, has a strong history of successful stroke clinical trials
over the past 40 years, leading to some astonishing advances in
treatment and prevention of the disease, including the first treatment
for acute stroke, announced in 1995.
The 25 centers are strategically placed in every region of the
country, (a complete list of centers their principal investigators, and
media contacts is below). Successful applicants demonstrated experience
in stroke research and recruitment, including the ability to enroll
underrepresented populations, and were required to offer access to the
full cadre of specialties that are involved in stroke care. These
include: emergency medicine, neurosurgery, interventional
neuroradiology, vascular neurology, neurointensive care, neuroimaging,
stroke rehabilitation and pediatric neurology.
Each center will receive five-year funding, with $200,000 in research
costs and $50,000 for training stroke clinical researchers per year
over the first three years, and additional funds driven by the
completion of milestones. The University of Cincinnati will manage the
national clinical coordinating center, which will oversee and coordinate
the institutional review board and master trial agreements for all of
the regional centers. NIH will announce the award of a national data
management center in February.
NIH StrokeNet investigators, working with the broader stroke
community, will propose, develop and conduct stroke protocols to be
administered within the network and train the future generation of
clinical researchers in stroke.
Historically, the model for stroke clinical trials was to complete
large teams of personnel and infrastructure, which were then
disassembled once the trial was completed. This led to delays in patient
recruitment and additional costs when new trials were initiated, with
some stroke clinical trials lasting many years longer than anticipated
and costing millions of dollars more than the original estimate.
In a 2013 article in Stroke, Story Landis, Ph.D., NINDS
director, and co-author Marc Fisher, M.D. write: "Because our ultimate
goal is to test and compare therapies that will have a real impact on
patient health, a coordinated and long range approach to solving
challenges in stroke trial research is sorely needed."
The network concept evolved from an NINDS planning effort in which
stroke experts were asked what is most needed to reduce death and
disability due to stroke in the United States. They called for a
nationwide stroke network that would allow for a more seamless
transition between early safety and efficacy trials and Phase II and III
clinical trials.
"NIH StrokeNet will allow the most promising therapies to quickly
advance to the clinic, to improve prevention, acute treatment, or
rehabilitation of the stroke patient," said Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D.,
NINDS deputy director. "We need to have a balance of approaches to
decrease the burden of illness due to stroke."
"Our goal for the NIH Stroke Centers Network is to initiate four to
five NINDS-funded exploratory Phase I and II stroke clinical trials, and
two to four Phase III trials over the next five years. This is a major
challenge which we believe the stroke research community will embrace,"
said Scott Janis, Ph.D., NINDS program director of the NIH StrokeNet.
A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted, causing
brain cells in the immediate area to die because they stop getting
oxygen. Stroke can also occur when a vessel breaks and bleeds into the
brain. The number of new strokes reported each year is 795,000, making
stroke the fourth leading cause of death in the US. Because stroke is
age-linked the incidence is expected to rise rapidly in the next decade.
Provided by National Institutes of Health
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