Pragmatic and adequately powered clinical trials are an ongoing challenge.

­Develop new tools to facilitate identification and recruitment of subjects, remote/wireless data collection, and functional measures.

We believe there should be greater openness to large, simple trials that answer clear questions of interest (e.g. does giving children more fruits and vegetables while changing nothing else lead to weight loss?; does eating breakfast regularly lead to weight loss?; etc.). The conduct of such trials may sometimes be expensive but can sometimes be only modestly costly if they are kept simple. However, it is difficult to ...more »

1) Phase III efficacy trials of new tuberculosis drugs (e.g., bedaquiline, delamanid, PA-824) that have shown promise in early phase studies for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. 2) Phase III efficacy trials of new and existing tuberculosis drugs to development very short course regimens (3-4 months). 3) Phase III efficacy trials of new and existing drugs for treatment of latent tuberculosis infection in contacts of ...more »

What are the best ways for the NHLBI to advance the evolving science of translating robust evidence into clinical practice domestically and globally? How to personalize broad research evidence for individual patients? How to predict and evaluate the impact of evidence-based interventions? How to identify implementation methods available in industry and elsewhere that work best and are most translatable in healthcare? ...more »

There are numerous obstacles to the timely completion of trials, and there is a crisis in US enrollment rates. Overcoming barriers to timely completion of clinical trials would have a profound impact on accelerating research translation to improving health. Clinical investigations are necessary to advance the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cures of human disease. The rate of basic scientific discovery has overwhelmed ...more »

Prevention trials, implemented to reduce or delay progression to overt disease in a population at risk to the disease, are an important approach to health promotion. Therapies shown to reduce disease severity in patients with a specific disease are obvious, but not the only, candidates for a prevention trial in populations at high risk for prevalent diseases (such as heart failure, diabetes, COPD, asthma in children). ...more »

We encourage the NHLBI to include research focused on children as a priority in their strategic vision. We encourage them to consider the implications of a life-course approach, where childhood presents a unique opportunity to set the trajectory for health risk as an adult. This also implies that interventions targeting children may have the greatest impact on the population as a whole in the long term.

Clinical research, especially randomized pharmaceutical clinical trials, poses many unique challenges compared to research in adult subjects. In pulmonary arterial hypertension, a disease characterized by high blood pressure of the lungs with increased pulmonary vascular resistance leading to right ventricular failure, there are 12 FDA-approved PAH-targeted therapies for adults. None of these medications are currently ...more »

There is a need to educate the scientific community and program staff about the use of metrics, results-based accountability, and other business models to improve the science, productivity, and efficiency of clinical trials and clinical trial networks.

How does insufficient sleep duration, irregular timed sleep schedules, and poor sleep quality contribute to the pathophysiology of lung, heart and blood diseases?

There are increasing demands on clinicians for clinical productivity and increasing both clinical and research regulatory requirement. A paralle trend is an increase in clinical trials being conducting outside of US, which is a significant concern in terms of US participation and data applicability to US patients, and the quality of trials data from other regions. These trends have multiple roots spanning from patients ...more »

What are the best methods for using genotype information and other EMR data to randomize heart, lung, blood, sleep patients to different treatment strategies? One big challenge is how to consent patients for this sort of trial. Must patients be consented separately for every such trial or could there be blanket consent for participating in the learning health care model? This would also require a paradigm shift in how ...more »