This month features several outstanding educational opportunities, including two symposia sponsored by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. We encourage everyone to take advantage of these events to learn, connect, and engage with colleagues across the research community.

August 10-11: 2026 Vascular and Heart Research Symposium 
Forging New Collaborations in Vascular and Heart Research 
The Fifth Annual Vascular and Heart Research Symposium, hosted by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and its Center for Vascular and Heart Research, will bring together experts in cardiovascular fields from across the region.

September 23-24: Precision Therapeutics for Schizophrenia: Integrating Computational Phenotyping with Next-Generation Pharmacology convenes scientists, clinicians, and healthcare leaders spanning circuit neuroscience to late-stage clinical development, advancing the shift toward personalized care. The two-day meeting will address three thematic areas: next-generation pharmacology for schizophrenia, computational approaches to patient stratification, and mechanistic neuroscience. We hope the event will have the right people at the table to drive collaboration and outcomes for patients. 

October 30- ACRP Virginia Chapter Annual Fall Symposium.  The ACRP Virginia Chapter will host its annual full-day event this fall, providing the opportunity to earn up to 7 educational contact hours featuring a dynamic lineup of educational sessions, panel discussions, and focused roundtables on the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in clinical research. Key Considerations Under ICH E6 (R3) will be presented by ACRP’s new CEO, David M. Vulcano, MSW, MBA, CIP, RAC, FACRP.

🎊 Celebrating Milestones

 Please join us in congratulating our colleagues celebrating their anniversary at Carilion!

10-Year Anniversary

Diedre (Dee) Myers- 7/25

Happy Anniversary and thank you for being part of the team! Carilion’s 2025 Medical Laboratory Science program.

Current Open Positions

Grant Funded Department of Medicine Clinical Research Unit - Clinical Research Coordinator III (Roanoke, Virginia)

Clinical Research Coordinator IV - Oncology (Roanoke, Virginia)

Clinical Research Coordinator IV (Roanoke, Virginia)

Effort Certification Reminder

Effort Certification is a quarterly, required process for employees whose pay is charged to or cost‑shared on a sponsored project (i.e., grant or clinical trial). Timely completion is important to ensure compliance with sponsor and federal requirements. 

Each quarter, you’ll receive a Workday task asking you to review and certify that your effort reasonably reflects the work you performed during the reporting period. Rest assured that the information has already been reviewed and vetted by your Sponsored Project Manager and can be certified as‑is. If something doesn’t look right, please contact your Sponsored Project Manager immediately.  

Carilion Clinic TriNetX Virtual Training Schedule

Carilion offers instructor-led, focused training for an in-depth, step-by-step learning experience building patient cohorts and delving into Analytics. The facilitator will be Dee Myers. Please get in touch with HART@carilionclinic.org with the subject of 'TriNetX Training' for training outside of the scheduled sessions. If you haven’t taken a class or need a refresher, this is your opportunity to do so!  Let Dee Myers know which date you prefer and she will send a meeting invitation.

• Aug 5, 10:30 am – noon
• Aug 20, 1:30 – 3pm
• Sept 9, 1:30 – 3pm
• Sept 23, 10:30am - noon

TriNetX User Agreement:  https://redcap.link/v5pw9j7j

For more information visit:https://redcapweb.carilionclinic.org/redcap/surveys/?s=dcUCIpMAzk8BqKH2

* Carilion Clinic Research and Development is honored to partner with a growing list of prestigious national and statewide research centers and healthcare organizations. Find out more about our collaborative research initiatives; explore our unique public-private partnerships with the Virginia Tech Carilion (VTC) School of Medicine, Virginia Tech, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, Radford University Carilion, and others. Connect with our team to discuss opportunities to collaborate with our experts or become a participant.

Congratulations to Vera Hollen, who is working directly with Carilion leadership on the Rural Health Transformation Grant, an initiative focused on improving health outcomes for communities across rural Virginia.

As part of the first round of funding, Virginia was awarded $189.5 million to support innovative strategies that improve healthcare access and outcomes in underserved communities. Carilion's leadership team will play an important role in identifying and evaluating opportunities to collaborate with the statewide program and advance these efforts.

To learn more about the Rural Health Transformation initiative, visit: Virginia Rural Health Transformation website.

We are grateful to Vera for her leadership and dedication to this important work. Her contributions reflect Research & Development's commitment to advancing innovative solutions that improve the health of the communities we serve.

Congratulations to Dr. Rob McNamara, faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, on his role as Co-Investigator on a newly funded NIH R21 grant led by Dr. Huaiyang Zhong, Principal Investigator.

The project, "Advancing Chronic Pain Care in Rural Seniors: Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing to Improve Understanding, Assessment, and Comorbidity Risk Prediction," will explore innovative ways to improve the assessment and management of chronic pain among older adults living in rural communities.

By leveraging machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and advanced predictive models, the research team aims to develop tools that provide a more comprehensive understanding of chronic pain while identifying individuals at increased risk for related conditions, such as depression. These innovations have the potential to support earlier interventions, improve clinical decision-making, and expand access to personalized care for underserved populations.

Dr. McNamara brings more than 15 years of experience in prevention, clinical intervention, and implementation research. His expertise as both a licensed clinical psychologist and researcher will help ensure that the project's innovative methodologies remain grounded in evidence-based practice and are applicable to real-world clinical settings.

The multidisciplinary team also includes Drs. Xuan Wang (VT), Jyoti Savla (VT), and Kwok-Leung Tsui (UT-Arlington), and whose expertise spans clinical psychology, artificial intelligence, aging, healthcare analytics, and biostatistics. The project is further strengthened by an interdisciplinary advisory board of Drs. Alex Hanlon (VT BHDS), Anita Kablinger (VTCSOM), Donald Penzien (Wake Forest), Margaret Rukstatlis (VTCSOM), Elizabeth Russo-Stringer (VTCSOM), and Bob Trestman (VTCSOM), who bring combined expertise in psychiatry, chronic pain, addiction medicine, clinical trials, and healthcare data science.

Congratulations to Dr. Zhong, Dr. McNamara, and the entire research team on this significant achievement and their commitment to advancing innovative research that improves the health of the communities we serve.

From first patient enrollments to recruitment milestones and newly launched studies, our research teams continue to make remarkable progress across Carilion's clinical research portfolio. Here are a few highlights from this month's clinical trials.

Research and Development

MoDi Twin -This study uses a new type of ultrasound technology for evaluation of blood vessels and flow of blood within the placenta. This new imaging technology will be performed in monochorionic [MoDi or MonoMono] twins, who share a placenta and may receive uneven shares of the placental blood flow or shunting of blood from one twin to the other.

Department of Medicine -Clinical Research Unit
During July, we enrolled the first patient to alloNK (Rheumatology; PI, A Bankole; Research Team Lead, M Eubank). As Carilion’s first cell therapy trial, alloNK investigates whether NK cells prepared from healthy donors and used with the monoclonal antibody rituximab deeply decrease the abnormal B cells that cause rheumatoid arthritis.

Congratulations to the entire team of the PRISM study (Infectious Diseases; PI, E Bansal; Research Team Lead, E Shava). We recently completed both our blinded and unblinded interim monitoring visits with minimal to no findings. These achievements showcase the team’s excellent preparation and collaboration. One of our newer trials, PRISM tests the safety and efficacy of the investigational product AZD5148 for preventing recurrent Clostridioides difficile infections in adults.

After celebrating the 200th enrollment to 20vPNC (Inpatient Research; PI, E Shava; Research Team Lead, J Mobley) in April, recruitment continues to be brisk, notably with 4 patients enrolled in a single day at Carilion Rockbridge, one of our satellite research sites. These achievements are particularly striking, given that initial feasibility assessments projected fewer than 100 participants enrolled. The 20vPNC trial evaluates how well this 20-valent vaccine protects elderly adults against community-acquired pneumonia due to 7 newly included isolates of Streptococcus pneumonia.

After experiencing a lull in enrollment to CONFORM (Cardiology; PI, J Foerst; Research Team Lead, Jenny Johnson) has regained momentum with alacrity. As for other structural heart trials, CONFORM’s extensive participant criteria and narrow eligible population present a particular recruitment challenge for its research teams. However, shout out to the research team, who enrolled not just 1 but 3 participants in a single day during July. The CONFORM study assesses whether a new left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) device works as well as other commercially available LAAO devices in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.

At the heart of every research study is a person, a family, and a story. While we often celebrate new grants, publications, and scientific discoveries, it is the lives touched by research that remind us why our work matters.

In this new recurring feature, Research Matters, we will share the stories of research participants, families, investigators, and research professionals whose experiences reflect the impact of research across our communities. These stories celebrate not only scientific progress, but also the hope, courage, and partnerships that make discovery possible.

For our inaugural feature, we are honored to share the story of Danny D. a young boy who participated in a leukemia clinical trial at Carilion.

His journey is one of resilience, hope, and the extraordinary partnership between families and research teams. Recently, his family reached out with wonderful news: Danny is thriving! After completing treatment, he has finished kindergarten and is now a rising first grader. His family shared that he is reading and writing above grade level, making new friends, enjoying T-ball, and discovering a love for music.

Along with sharing this wonderful update, Danny's family expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the physicians, nurses, research staff, and care teams who supported them throughout their journey. "All of this to say, none of this would be possible without the work and care that we received at Carilion Clinic from all of you... Through every test, poke, prod and IV drip, you all carried so much love and light into the room in the absolute darkest of times."

For those who cared for him throughout his research journey, this update is a powerful reminder that every consent discussion, study visit, laboratory sample, and data entry represents much more than a research protocol. Together, these efforts contribute to discoveries that improve treatments, offer hope to families, and help shape the future of medicine.

We are deeply grateful to the Dudley family for allowing us to share a small part of their journey. Their willingness to participate in research has contributed to advances that may benefit countless children and families in the years to come.

Watch Danny's Story: See how one family's journey through leukemia treatment and clinical research became a story of hope, resilience, and gratitude.

Danny's Cancer Journey with Carilion Clinic

Behind every research study is a person, a family, and a story. Thank you to every research participant who helps move medicine forward.