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November 12-14, 2001
Singapore

Sponsors

• National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• The Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Singapore
• National University of Singapore

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Office of International Health Research (OIHR) Shares Expertise in Singapore Meeting

NCCAM's meeting, held in association with an earlier event, represented the first outreach event of its new Office of International Health Research (OIHR). It was the first time a workshop of this nature, introducing grantsmanship at NIH and the basic principles of clinical research, had been held in Southeast Asia.

Speakers who traveled from the United States included

• Joana Rosario, M.D., M.P.H., director of OIHR
• Anthony Coelho, Ph.D., review policy officer, Office of the NIH Director
• Brian Berman, M.D., director of the University of Maryland Complementary Medicine Program
• Adrian Dobs, M.D., professor at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Paul Lietman, M.D., Ph.D., professor at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Alice Chi, grants management specialist, National Center for Research Resources, NIH

Dr. Rosario led off the meeting by introducing NIH, NCCAM, and programs of special interest to international researchers. Other sessions addressed

• NIH scientific review process and grants administration procedures
• Phase I, II, and III clinical trials
• Challenges and issues in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) research
• Ethics
• Intellectual property issues in CAM
• Data Safety and Monitoring Boards
• International collaborations
• Managing an international study

Two hundred people attended, including investigators, practitioners, government health officials, members of industry, and students. They came from approximately one dozen countries, such as Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Sweden. Many attendees commented on their desire to become viable candidates for NIH and NCCAM grants and on the helpfulness of the sessions in figuring out what one called "the black box of NIH."

There was frequent discussion of the unique aspects of traditional Chinese medicine and the challenges they pose for fitting into a Western clinical research model. However, ways were proposed to meet this goal--for example, by developing language and tools of measurement common to both.

In convening the event, Dr. Rosario stated, "We at NCCAM hope that this workshop will foster stronger international collaborations in CAM research to more rapidly advance our scientific knowledge in this field."

NCCAM Director Dr. Stephen E. Straus, M.D., commented, "This meeting was our first at which we brought the concept of an NCCAM-driven global research program directly to investigators abroad. It is our hope that investigators from countries steeped in rich healing traditions can merge that expertise with the best contemporary research methods to create compelling and competitive research applications. This, we hope, will lead to studies of aspects of CAM that otherwise would be harder to undertake in the United States."

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