Core 1: Bioethics Shared Resource

University Of Alabama At Birmingham, Birmingham AL

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

(The Bioethics Shared Resource is identical for all three Partnering Institutions) The Bioethics Shared Resource (BESR), is coordinated through the Tuskegee University (TU) Center for Biomedical Research and includes bioethicists consulting for Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), and the University of Alabama O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at Birmingham (UAB OCCC). The BESR provides exceptional bioethics education, training, guidance, and consultation throughout the MSM/TU/UAB OCCC Partnership and spearheads research on bioethical issues. BESR activities fall under three overarching and complementary objectives: (1) achieving competencies in content areas of bioethics with a focus on cancer research ethics; (2) integrating bioethics concepts nationally, by presentation of a conference on bioethical issues in cancer research, and throughout the Partnership by dialogue with researchers, clinicians, faculty, students, patient advocates, community health advisors, patient navigators, recruiters, and key personnel; and (3) conducting research to uncover and expand ethical issues from the perspectives of patients and making recommendations that inform scientific and behavioral research and policy. The specific aims of the BESR are: (1) To expand on the strategic integration of bioethics in all Partnership projects, at every stage of research, through collaboration with the Research Education and Outreach Cores; (2) To collaborate in teaching graduate/undergraduate courses in bioethics, health outcomes and health policy, and bioethics in biosciences, and facilitating discussions of ethical issues in clinical trials through the utilization of the bioethics experts across the three partner institutions; (3) To endow community stakeholders, patient advocates, students, and investigators across all Cores and Projects with tools needed to design, conduct, and manage clinical studies through the implementation of an e-Course on Good Clinical Practice (GCP) in social and behavioral cancer research; (4) To facilitate the ethical engagement of study participants in urban and rural areas of Alabama and Georgia, addressing bioethical concerns in clinical and genomic studies; and (5) To leverage the expertise and bioethics facilities at Tuskegee University, MSM, and the UAB OCCC to conduct projects that address bioethical issues in biomedical, social, and behavioral cancer research involving all patients in the southeastern U.S. Expansion of these advances to the national level will be via presentation of a conference on ethical issues in cancer research. Appropriate methods for achieving the stated aims are described in the Research Strategy section. Planning and evaluation of outcomes are detailed in the Logic Model.