Research
UCSF Fresno Clinical Research Center Ramps Up, Ready to Oversee More Multi-Disciplinary Clinical Trials and Studies By Lucero Benitez, UCSF Fresno Communications, lucero.benitez@ucsf.edu Research is vital to UCSF Fresno’s mission to improve health in the San Joaquin Valley and Central California. Faculty investigators at UCSF Fresno conduct government, industry and private-sponsored outpatient (and inpatient) research. UCSF Fresno’s priorities include investigating health conditions relevant to the region and securing clinical trials that bring new treatments to the area before they are available more broadly. The UCSF Fresno Clinical Research Center (CRC) consolidates research at UCSF Fresno into one centralized location on the UCSF School of Medicine regional campus in downtown Fresno. The CRC opened in 2013. It has grown significantly and now encompasses 11 full-time clinical staff including research coordinators, a regulatory specialist, phlebotomists, 28
an on-site dedicated pharmacist and two pharmacy technicians. Eyad Almasri, MD, assistant dean for Research at UCSF Fresno and core faculty in the Department of Medicine, the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, oversees the coordination of research at UCSF Fresno and says the center is crucial for faculty. “Medication storage, grant applications, shoring up resources, blood draws, different sample collections, researchrelated procedures and tests like EKG, pulmonary function testing, it all takes place in this center,” Dr. Almasri said. Also available are two fully equipped patient exam rooms with EKG machines and blood pressure monitors, a phlebotomy and blood processing room with refrigerated centrifuge, an investigational drug pharmacy with the
ability to store room-temperature and refrigerated investigational products, a secure file room for storage of confidential subject charts, a specimen storage room with -20 and -80 degree freezers, a consultation room for oneon-one interviews and a conference room for research meetings. The equipment and staff at the center are available to support all UCSF Fresno departments, faculty and students who are conducting research. Infectious Diseases physician Geetha Sivasubramanian, MD, is actively involved in several research projects at UCSF Fresno and says the work she does is dependent on the research center. “It’s phenomenal to have something so accessible. I can come in here in the middle of my work or my rounds