The LRG Research Team recently held a teleconference that focused primarily on a study the team will collaborate on and intends to publish. The LRG Research Team consists of nine members, with seven at institutions throughout the United States and two in Europe (Germany and Belgium) and meets four times a year, either via teleconference or in-person. The team works in a truly collaborative fashion, sharing resources and ideas when working on their various projects, all of which focus on understanding the nature of GIST and developing compounds that can be transformed into drugs used to treat the disease.
The creation of this paper is a perfect example of this collaboration. The paper will be examining the role of a molecule that is active in a particular metabolic pathway relevant to GIST – in order to study this, a number of things need to be accomplished – including providing relevant clinical data through patient histories, doing tests for the presence of the molecule, performing analysis on tissue samples, and writing a draft of the results. The LRG, through its patient registry, was able to provide patient histories to the team, and the other tasks were divided up among the various team members, all of whom generously offered their time and equipment.
This all occurred in real time through conferencing software – this is part of what makes the LRG Research Team unique, as normally this process does not occur in such a timely and efficient fashion, but instead slowly and often only after multiple layers of approval from the various institutions involved.
The LRG providing information to the researchers directly via the patient registry is also not something typically found in other research environments – in addition to sponsoring the research of its team members, the LRG is also actively participating in it by directly providing data.
The paper is currently in the process of development and we all anxiously await the publication of its results, and will be sure to inform you as soon as that occurs.