A Christmas Carol Clinical Trial

No matter how you celebrate the holiday-from hanging a kwanza wreath, going to midnight church services,  lighting the menorah, making New Year’s resolutions, or looking forward to Chinese New Year, the holidays are a time for rest and rejuvenation as we look at the promise of a new year. For many of us, the holidays are also a time to reawaken fond memories by watching our favorite holiday classics. And,  of course, a can’t miss movie is Charles Dickens', “A Christmas Carol.” But which version of this popular film should you watch? There are 135 film varieties of this iconic book, written in 1843. The most popular include the Mickey Mouse version, the 2009 animated film featuring Jim Carey, and of course the popular “The Muppets” adaptation. 

Luckily, you’re in for a treat. The CCTS is here to illustrate the 136th version; “A Christmas Carol: The Ghosts of Clinical Trials: Past, Present, and Future.”

Past: 

The Ghost of Clinical Trials Past first takes you to biblical times where Babylonians, Egyptians and Hebrews allied together with similar religious practices, using their combined knowledge of medicine to diagnose ailing patients. The Babylonians, in particular, used to display their sick patients for the public to observe and discuss similarities to illnesses they had seen in the past. Though not necessarily a “clinical trial,” it is deemed to be one of the first public health efforts in community-engaged clinical research to determine the “causes” of illness.

The first successful clinical trial was not conducted until the 18^th century, when James Lind studied the effects of citrus on scurvy. Those who had scurvy and consumed lemons and oranges daily recovered in six days, while those who were fed horseradish, mustard, and garlic did not have any significant change. Due to this success, the British Navy began supplying citrus on their ships beginning in 1795.^[1]

Fast forward to the 1990’s through early 2000’s when the Human Genome Project mapped more than three billion genomes to understand the genetic underpinnings of health and disease. The knowledge garnered from this international effort quickly led to new treatments for diseases, ranging from sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis to cancer and cardiovascular disease. The emerging insights from this will be used for years to come to inform the development of new therapies or targeting the right treatment for an individual.[2]

But, bah, humbug! That is the past. What’s happened, has happened. Clinical trials have come a long way from those early days. In fact, let’s see where we are today.

Present: 

The Ghost of Clinical Trials Present takes you to a well-respected research institution, The Ohio State University . With more than 2,000 current, active research studies and clinical trials, ranging from sports medicine to behavioral health, The Ohio State University, the Wexner Medical Center, and various university research centers have it all. Thanks to the researchers that came before them, clinical and translational investigators at The Ohio State University are pushing boundaries to make life-altering discoveries and build breakthrough health care solutions that quickly translate to patient care. 

Interested in becoming involved in research at The Ohio State University? There are numerous ways to join ongoing trials, including The James’ Cancer search system , Study Search , and ResearchMatch . If navigating technology isn’t your forte, you can also call the HERO Line at the Center for Clinical and Translational Science to get in touch with studies you are interested in. And finally, ClinicalTrials.Gov  is a world-wide database with almost 400,000 studies being done in all 50 states and 220 countries.

So, what comes next? Will we see the scientific discoveries of today turning into life-changing disease prevention strategies, health diagnostics, and treatments of tomorrow? 

Future:

Here are the CCTS, we would like to think that The Ghost of Clinical Trials Future will bring you into a world where researchers, clinicians, and patients work together to develop new strategies, tests and treatments for the most urgent public health threats and health condition. From COVID-19 or the opioid and substance use crisis to diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease or cancer, patients will be receiving individualized treatments. They will living longer and healthier lives, and clinical research will welcome everyone to participate from the ideas to implementation to improve the landscape of patient care for all.

“Although we truly do not know for certain what the future of research and medicine holds, we are optimistic about the healthcare of tomorrow,” says Dr. Rebecca Jackson, Director of the CCTS. “As we continue to encourage research at all levels, we know that the research seeds planted today will yield life-changing results – now, and in the future. As we have learned from our past and the present, we need to work collaboratively in real-world settings to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to contribute to the future of medicine.”

To learn more about how to get involved in clinical trials, visit The CCTS’s website 

^[1] https://www.fda.gov/media/110437/download

[2] https://www.veristat.com/blog/the-history-of-clinical-research-1980-2009