CAB MEETING MINUTES

October 18, 2005 

Three CAB members, 2 staff members and 2 guests attended the October 2005 meeting of the UTMB Galveston AIDS Clinical Trials Unit Community Advisory Board (CAB).

Report from Dr. O'Brien

·         Dr. O’Brien gave update on the status of the ACTG.  He stated that currently there are 76 ACTG sites (combining domestic and international locations) and 6 separate networks.  It has been rumored that there has been approximately 1200 applications into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to become an ACTG site. 

·         Dr. O’Brien is in the process of writing a transition plan in order to smoothly take our unit from ACTG to industrial trials. He spoke of first doing outreach all over to several surrounding counties to support the ACTG studies and have this same population of study participants to use for the industrial studies.  After reaching out on several instances he realized that no one will come to UTMB if the drive time is two or more hours away from our site.

·         Dr. O’Brien said he has an upcoming meeting with the Senior Vice President of TIBOTEC to discuss a plan to present to UTMB officials for placing inmates on clinical trial studies.

·         Dr. O’Brien wants to focus on the Clear Lake area and has already begun contacts with Drs. Lau (UTMB Hepatitis C Specialist) and Onorato (former UTMB-ACTU physician, now in private practice in Clear Lake ).  Dr. Lau has a hepatitis C clinic already established in the Clear Lake area and O’Brien wants to tie-in the clinical trials through her clinic.  He has discussed this with Drs. Sarria and Mulanovich (two new faculty HIV specialists).  They are very supportive of this idea and willing to rotate days to help oversee patient care in the Clear Lake clinic once everything is approved by the Institutional Review Board at UTMB.

CAB News

• Discussed changing of By-Laws to reflect meeting quarterly as opposed to monthly.  The members voted and passed the change to have a minimum of 4 regular meetings per year until further notice about the status of the unit.
• Group discussion of CAB budget for refreshments.  Outreach Coordinator (Denise Justice) reported that the accountant has stated there is no set budget for refreshments. The funds for refreshments come from the ACTG grant as a courtesy to the CAB members but no set amount is dedicated each month for this.   
• Dennis mentioned our salvage therapies and wanted to be sure that in our outreach efforts that his personal physician (Dr. Gordon Crofoot) was on our studies list that is sent out monthly.  He also queried if it would be harder to keep clinical trials going once ACTG funding is gone.
• Dennis brought up the possibility of having telemedicine satellite offices.  There was group discussion of this concept and Dr. O’Brien and DJ went over the pros and cons.  They both shared that it was a great idea.  However, the ACTG does not allow you to open satellite offices from your site.  Dennis wanted to understand why this was not allowable.  Dr. O’Brien shared with the group the reason for this is because the ACTG requires all study patients to come to the official ACTU site for treatment and lab work.

• The CAB members then asked about getting prison inmates on studies from TDCJ.  Dr. O’Brien informed the members that this also was not permitted by the ACTG.  He did mention that once we make the transition from ACTG to more industrial studies, we should be able to get inmates into clinical trials as most pharmaceutical companies do not have a problem with putting inmates on studies. 
• There was no special election for CAB secretary as no one was nominated.  The election was waived until the next meeting by unanimous vote.
• Fall/Winter ACTG Meeting in Baltimore was brought up.  The CAB Chairman informed the group that there are 2 slots available to go from our area.  However, at the moment he did not know where the funding would come from to send them.  The CAB Chairman would email Dr. O’Brien and inquire about sending two people and the source of funding.

Community Outreach  

·         A.C.C.T. is planning a World AIDS Day event with an education outreach theme to the schools and a formal unveiling of their new sculpture.   Denise mentioned that A.C.C.T. phoned her to ask Dr. O’Brien if he would speak after the unveiling.  Denise will confirm this with Dr. O’Brien and Ms. Nelson, the Exec. Director of A.C.C.T. 

·         Denise shared with the group that she was contacted by a youth group out of Alexandria , Louisiana who wanted to take a tour of the ACTU.  The group will be arriving Friday morning on Oct. 21^st and Denise has a tour of Dr. O’Brien’s lab area scheduled for them to see as well as a presentation from one of the Adjunct Professor’s on campus in Infectious Diseases to highlight a career in research and infectious diseases.  The Associate Dean of Student Affairs will also speak to the group and Denise will ask one of the ACTU study nurses to speak with the group as well.

·         Denise also shared that next Friday, October 28^th the Annual ACTU Forum will take place.  She explained that this Forum is open dialogue between ACTU faculty and staff and their invited guests.  The guests are from local and surrounding areas of HIV clinics and agencies.  She said her goal is to help bring about more awareness of our studies to the clinics and agencies and for them to share with ACTU faculty and staff what could be done better or differently to help increase our patient recruitment for clinical trials.

NEXT CAB MEETING 
(There will be no November Meeting)

When:       Tuesday, January 31, 2006, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. 
                  Refreshments and light meal available at 5:15 p.m. 

Where:     UTMB-Marvin Graves Building, 1012 Texas Ave. (The Strand), 4th floor Conference Room #4.208.  Public parking available at Garage #2 next to the UTMB Emergency Room on Harborside Drive.  Parking tokens available to meeting  attendees.  (See map for directions.)

Agenda:   

·         Organization - A special election for a CAB Secretary 

o        Please e-mail your nominations to Robert Zahn (rezahn@aol.com).

·         Increasing membership

Reminders:  Guests are welcomed to attend CAB meetings.

                  Next national CAB call is Thursday, December 15, 2005. CAB calls are open to all community members interested in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) and HIV/AIDS research.  Call-in time: 12:15 pm (Central), Toll-free# 1-866-328-4274, Access Code CAB Business

Any questions, please call 409-747-0214 or toll-free 877-324-ACTU (2288).  You can also email Denise Justice.  While reservations are not required, calling in advance helps us better plan for food and parking tokens and we like to hear from you! 

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