The staff of the Indiana CTSI’s Clinical Research Center move medicine forward
The Indiana CTSI’s Clinical Research Center (CRC) at University Hospital is where clinical research and patient wellbeing advance together. As one of the state’s central hubs for clinical investigation, the CRC provides an expertly staffed, rigorously managed environment where studies are conducted with precision, safety, and a steadfast commitment to participants.
Valerie Geraghty, RN, first joined the staff of the CRC in 2006. She remembers patients who entered trials feeling like they had run out of options, and others who joined simply because they wanted to contribute to the future of care. Some participants stay in trials for years.
“Being able to give people time—extra months, or even extra years—is incredibly rewarding,” she said.
On a given day, 10 to 20 studies are active at the CRC, ranging from early-phase drug trials to metabolic studies to device testing. The CRC is staffed by nurses and medical assistants, some of whom have worked in clinical research for decades. They are focused on providing safe, high-quality research experiences that help move medicine forward.
For the staff, connecting with patients on a human level is an important part of advancing medical research.
“Patients often remark on how nice it is to see the same nurses every time they visit the CRC,” said Sheila Carson, RN, who has been on staff for 19 years. She said that getting to know patients throughout their healthcare journey has been one of the best parts of her work at the CRC.
“Plus, I am so lucky to have the best coworkers,” she added.
History
The CRC at University Hospital was established more than 50 years ago through an initiative known as the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) program. It was funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“The GCRC was created because collecting high‑quality research data is extremely difficult in a traditional hospital environment,” said Laurie Trevino, MS, operations manager.
The NIH funding allowed IU to build dedicated infrastructure and hire staff whose sole focus was research, not clinical operations. Early on, the CRC included specialized services such as sample analysis and later a metabolic kitchen to provide nutrient‑controlled meals.
In 2008, the GCRC program was folded into the Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) program, Trevino explained. This is the award that funds the Indiana CTSI.
“When we became part of the Indiana CTSI, our mission stayed the same: support investigators and ensure the highest quality data collection,” she said.
A different kind of nursing
In her role, Trevino ensures that CRC operations run as efficiently as possible, that patients receive excellent patient care, and that staff provide investigators with accurate, high‑quality data collection.
“A big part of my role is standardizing procedures and processes so that our team delivers consistent, high‑standard support for all studies,” she said.
Every new study undergoes a feasibility review to determine whether it’s safe and appropriate for the space. Once approved, the CRC team builds detailed orders and nursing flow sheets. These tools guide each step of participant care, from blood draws to infusions to monitoring for reactions. With more than 200 active protocols, these documents are essential.
“They’re like our bibles,” says Nora Melvin, RN, who first joined the CRC as a nursing student in 2011 and now trains the new students who rotate through the unit.
The work requires a level of coordination that isn’t always visible to investigators or participants, and sometimes delays with lab results or scheduled scans can cascade quickly. But the staff is adept at keeping participants calm and ensuring protocols remain intact.
“We want investigators to know that their research is safe here and that it will be done well,” says Julie Raters, nurse manager.
Raters understands that a study’s success or failure hinges on collecting crucial data points at precise times. The CRC’s staffing model and infrastructure are built with this in mind.
“If you don’t have a specialized team focused on this, crucial data points will be missed. That’s the difference between this kind of nursing and other nursing,” she said.
Care, connection & respect
Clinical operations are rigorously systematic. But in the CRC, there is also a strong sense of community and family-like connection.
“You develop relationships with people,” Geraghty said, recalling long-term patients who remembered each of her pregnancies, and who sent cards, flowers or other tokens of gratitude for the care they received at the CRC.
Little can beat the joy of seeing that new treatments are working, the staff members agreed.
Tabetha Taylor, a medical assistant who has also worked in the Indiana CTSI Neuroscience CRC, once recognized a family she had worked with in an advertisement for an Alzheimer’s drug. April Deloney, RN, especially enjoys alopecia studies, in which participants enter trials without hair and leave with hair growth.
This care for their patients is aligned with the CRC’s ethos of respect for research and for the people who make it possible. They are participants, and not subjects, said Nora Watts, medical assistant.
Being here is “an active choice,” she said.
In that spirit, the team also expressed gratitude for the participants who enroll in trials to be part of healthy control groups. Many of these individuals come through the CRC, too.
“They’re sharing their time to help someone, to improve someone’s life,” Taylor said. “This is how medicine moves on.”
The Indiana CTSI has three additional CRC locations: the Neuroscience CRC at in Indianapolis; the Nutrition and Exercise Research Center at IU Bloomington; and the Children’s CRC at Riley Hospital.
To learn more about the Indiana CTSI CRCs, visit the Indiana CTSI website.
Robyn Hawn contributed to this story.
