New York, NY (PRWEB) January 17, 2014
NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Named to National Institutes of Health Stroke Trials Network
Clinical investigators will share research results with a national network of stroke centers
In a novel approach to stroke research, investigators from NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center will collaborate to create the New York Stroke Trials Network of Columbia and Cornell. The network is one of 25 regional stroke centers across the country funded by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Trials Network (NIH StrokeNet), announced by the National Institutes of Health in December 2013.
As a regional stroke center, the New York Stroke Trials Network of Columbia and Cornell will run NIH-sponsored clinical trials in stroke prevention, acute stroke treatment, and stroke recovery. The center received five-year funding, beginning with $250,000 per year over the first three years for research costs and the training of stroke clinical researchers. The NIH selected centers that had experience in stroke research, documented ability to recruit stroke patients into clinical trials, and access to all specialties involved in stroke care.
"For the first time, the three main facets of comprehensive stroke care--stroke prevention, acute stroke treatment, and stroke recovery and rehabilitation--will be integrated into an NIH-funded national clinical trials network," said co-principal investigator Dr. Randolph Marshall, chief of the Stroke Division at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center and professor of neurology at CUMC. "The New York Stroke Trials Network of Columbia and Cornell will benefit from the expertise of our physicians and scientists in all three areas." At the national level, Dr. Marshall will co-direct the Education and Training Core for the Stroke Trials Network; he also has been appointed to the StrokeNet Executive Committee.
"This grant will allow us to provide our stroke patients with the most up-to-date, cutting-edge treatments available through high-quality clinical trials," said co-principal investigator Dr. Dana Leifer, neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and associate professor of neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College, who will lead work under the grant at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. "It will allow our researchers to participate in developing well-designed trials that will test new treatments for stroke patients and then to conduct these trials along with the other StrokeNet centers. The StrokeNET trials should lead to practical improvements in stroke patient care," Dr. Leifer explained.
Dr. Matthew Fink, neurologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and chairman of the Department of Neurology and the Louis and Gertrude Feil Professor of Clinical Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College, is also named as a co-principal investigator on the grant.
In addition, two neurosurgeons--Dr. E. Sander Connolly, surgical director of the neuro-intensive care unit at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center and Bennett M. Stein Professor of Neurological Surgery (CUMC) and Dr. Philip Stieg, neurosurgeon-in-chief at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery and professor of clinical neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College--have been named co-principal investigators. The New York Stroke Trials Network of Columbia and Cornell is one of only four StrokeNet centers featuring neurosurgeons as co-principal investigators.
Several other features will distinguish the New York Stroke Trials Network of Columbia and Cornell from other StrokeNet sites, including a unique subnetwork of academic stroke rehabilitation sites and a subnetwork of acute stroke hospitals in New Jersey and Brooklyn with capabilities for acute endovascular stroke therapy.