The Clinical Research (CR) Forum will honor ten outstanding clinical research studies, including The Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN), at the 2019 Top Ten Clinical Research Achievement Awards at the National Press Club on March 5, 2019 in Washington, DC. Vandana Shashi, MBBS, MD, professor of pediatrics in the Division of Medical Genetics and principal investigator for the UDN at Duke, has been nominated to accept the award on behalf of the entire UDN.
The Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN), nominated by the National Human Genome Research Institute, represented by Vandana Shashi, MBBS, MD, professor of pediatrics in the Division of Medical Genetics and principal investigator for the UDN at Duke, and Kim Leblanc, associate director of research operations for the Undiagnosed Diseases Coordinating Center based at Harvard University. Rare, novel, and undiagnosed disorders challenge patients, their families, and their clinicians. The goals of the UDN are to develop a model to speed the diagnosis of rare or previously unrecognized diseases, improve care, and stimulate research. The UDN plans to reach these objectives by growing the numbers of experts who can make accurate diagnoses, by determining best practices for introducing the strategy into medical centers nationwide, and by sharing results, data, specimens, and approaches with the scientific and medical communities.
Read entire press release on the Department of Pediatrics' Blog