Office of Clinical Trials Research

Undernourished children are more vulnerable to pathogens and more likely to die from vaccine-preventable infectious disease, even when vaccinated. Research by Benjamin Lee, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, points to gut health as a contributing factor.

In a recent study published in the American Heart Association (AHA) journal Hypertension, scientists from the Larner College of Medicine, including Timothy Plante, M.D., M.H.S., Russell Tracy, Ph.D., Debora Kamin Mukaz, Ph.D., M.S., Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc., and Neil Zakai, M.D., M.Sc., explored the intricate relationship between specific inflammatory biomarkers and hypertension—with some surprising results.

Larner study underscores the critical importance of COVID-19 vaccination in preventing illness from the virus.

A new collaboration between Vermont Medicaid and UVM Medical Center’s Comprehensive Pain Program allows Medicaid members with chronic pain to participate in complementary therapies including health coaching, massage, yoga, nutrition, acupuncture, and meditation. This pilot is an important step toward eliminating disparities in access to effective, integrative care for pain.

There are currently no approved vaccines available to prevent Lyme disease in humans, but one may be on the way. UVM’s Vaccine Testing Center recently launched a clinical study to investigate the efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity of a Lyme disease vaccine.

Each summer, many rising second-year medical students engage in clinical, basic science or health policy-related research projects under the guidance of expert faculty. The students choose their topics based on personal passions and immerse themselves in projects tackling medical puzzles and unmet health needs. Engaging in research can be among the most valuable experiences during a medical education.

The University of Vermont Cancer Center recently announced the names of the inaugural Juckett Scholars. The award program is part of the new Clinician Investigator Development Initiative and is supported by the Juckett Foundation.

New trial results from the University of Vermont and an international team of researchers show that administering a full dose of a standard blood thinner early to moderately ill hospitalized patients with COVID-19 could reduce the risk of severe disease and death.

On March 18, 2021, researchers from across UVM came together via Zoom for the second edition of the Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center's COVID-19 research slam, titled “UVM Tackles COVID-19: Research Progress and Perspectives One Year into the Pandemic.”

The UVM Medical Center and Vaccine Testing Center have successfully reached and surpassed the targeted number of enrollees for an ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

Often-deadly blood clots are a common complication of cancer care, yet less than five percent of patients receive education on how to prevent them. A team of clinician-researchers at the UVM Cancer Center have published an evidence-based prevention “roadmap” found to reduce blood clots by 38 percent in the highest-risk patients.

​Do the cognitive changes that sometimes occur at menopause relate to an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease? That’s what a newly launched study, co-led by University of Vermont Associate Professor of Psychiatry Julie Dumas, Ph.D., aims to determine.

A study that evaluated opioid prescribing patterns at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) before and after state-mandated regulations went into effect was presented by UVM Larner College of Medicine Clinical Instructor of Surgery Mayo Fujii, M.D., M.S., at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2019.

(APRIL 30, 2019) A new study, published Miller Chair of Palliative Medicine Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., in the journal Psycho-Oncology, details how a seriously ill patient’s optimism can impact a clinician’s survival prognosis in palliative care conversations.

Twenty years ago, a small local chapter of the American Lung Association took on the daring task of bringing an Airways Clinical Research Center (ACRC) to Vermont. On February 28, clinicians, patients, donors, staff and board members gathered to celebrate two decades of lung disease treatment research in the only ACRC in a rural area - the Vermont Lung Center at UVM's ACRC, part of the nation’s largest not-for-profit network of clinical research centers dedicated to asthma and COPD treatment.

The NIH announced December 3, 2018 that enrollment for the landmark Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is now complete and, in early 2019, scientists will have access to baseline data from all ABCD Study participants. There are over 11,874 youth, ages 9-10, participating in the study at 21 research sites around the country, including the University of Vermont (UVM).

An innovative initiative that will use a public health approach to inform opioid prescribing policies will be launched in northern New England thanks to a new $339,000 grant to the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research (NNE-CTR) Network from the National Institutes of Health.

Vaccinations have begun in a first-in-human trial of an experimental live, attenuated Zika virus vaccine developed by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The trial will enroll a total of 28 healthy, non-pregnant adults ages 18 to 50 at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Immunization Research in Baltimore, Md., and at the Vaccine Testing Center at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont in Burlington.