A top academic and research official at UNMC will serve as chairman on a national advisory committee on human research protection.
Ernest Prentice, Ph.D., associate dean for research and associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, on Friday was named chairman of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protection. Tommy Thompson, U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, made the appointment.
“Under Dr. Prentice’s leadership, this committee will provide valuable insight and guidance into the medical and ethical issues surrounding medical research,” Thompson said. “We must make sure that we allow science and medical research to advance for the good of all Americans, but not at the expense of the people who participate in these clinical trials.”
The committee is charged with providing advice to the department on matters relating to the responsible conduct of research involving human subjects. This includes research issues involving special populations, such as children, neonates, prisoners and the decisionally impaired; pregnant women, embryos and fetuses; individuals and populations in international studies; populations in which there are individually identifiable samples, data or information; and investigator conflicts of interest.
An honor
UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., said Friday’s appointment is an indication of the high regard that the scientific community has for Dr. Prentice’s expertise and judgment. He is among the very best in his field, Dr. Maurer said.
“This is a really big appointment for Dr. Prentice and for UNMC,” Dr. Maurer said. “Dr. Prentice has a commendable history in the study of medical ethical issues, and he will do well in this new capacity.”
In addition to his scholarly work in the fields of anatomy and medical education, Dr. Prentice is the author of numerous articles on the ethics and regulation of both human and animal research, and he is a frequent speaker at meetings on various aspects of research ethics.
For more than 20 years, he has co-chaired the UNMC Institutional Review Board, which assures the protection of all human subjects in research projects conducted by anyone on the premises of UNMC to research conducted elsewhere by faculty, students, staff, or other representatives of UNMC in connection with their institutional responsibilities. Dr. Prentice also is a professor in two departments at UNMC: the department of genetics, cell biology and anatomy and the department of preventive and societal medicine.
Other committee members
In addition to Dr. Prentice, the new committee’s members include:
- Tom Adams, the chief executive officer of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals, an international trade association based in Alexandria, Va., with about 17,000 professional members.
- Mark Barnes, J.D., a health care attorney and partner in the New York law firm Ropes & Gray. He served on the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee.
- Celia B. Fisher, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Ethics Education at Fordham University in New York currently serving as bioethicist-in-residence and as visiting professor in psychology at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
- E. Nigel Harris, M.D., dean and senior vice president for academic affairs at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.
- Robert G. Hauser, M.D., senior consulting cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute in Minneapolis, Minn.
- Nancy L. Jones, Ph.D., associate professor of pathology at Wake Forest University Health Sciences in Winston-Salem, N.C.
- Felix A. Khin-Maung-Gyi, the founder and chief executive officer of Chesapeake Research Review in Columbia, Md., which serves as an independent Institutional Review Board and provides other professional services in the private sector.
- Susan Kortensky, M.P.H., the director of clinical research compliance at Children’s Hospital in Boston. She served on the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee.
- Jonathan Moreno, Ph.D., a professor of bioethics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. He served on the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee.
- Mary Lake Polan, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif.