Researchers and administrators at the world famous St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital heard West Virginia University’s director of the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance speak on the critical need for research institutions to nurture high levels of public trust and concomitant respect for their product as part of an overall research enterprise.

Daniel Vasgird was a guest lecturer as part of St. Jude’s Danny Thomas Lecture Series. Being nominated and invited to speak as part of the series is an honor reserved for top experts.

The objectives of the Danny Thomas Lectures Series are to: educate and inform the St. Jude basic science and clinical faculty of the latest cutting edge research and therapies in biomedical sciences and bring to St. Jude information from a range of experts that promotes continued excellence in patient care, research and administration.

“Integrity and responsibility are words with profound implications, especially for those who participate in the global community of science,” Vasgird told the St. Jude audience. “Research as a profession generally flourishes when the public that supports it and ultimately makes use of its products has high regard for its ways and means.”

Vasgird said WVU was one of a growing number of research institutions that has emphasized research integrity initiatives to meet the needs of a competitive arena and bolster the public trust in research results.

The WVU Office of Research Integrity and Compliance is committed to helping faculty, staff and students comply with all applicable federal, state, and institutional requirements and policies. Research integrity and compliance areas covered by Vasgird and his office include human subjects protections, animal welfare, biosafety, export control, conflict of interest, and responsible conduct of research.

“The mission of our Office of Research Integrity and Compliance is to foster a culture of integrity within the University ensuring that participants in the WVU research enterprise internalize and pursue the goal of self-directed responsible conduct of research,” Vasgird said.

Vasgird’s St. Jude appearance traced the evolution of techniques related to the responsible conduct of research of the last half century and stressed the need to emphasize compliance with rules for integrity in order to ensure the continued public trust in institutional research results.

He was invited to be a Danny Thomas Lecture Series speaker by Dr. Gerard Grosveld, chair of the Genetics Department at St. Jude.

Vasgird received his BA and MA degrees from the University of California and completed his PhD in social psychology at Syracuse University. He later returned to do a post-doctoral research fellowship at Berkeley and then worked overseas as a human services educator and consultant for the federal government. Vasgird also serves as an associate professor in the WVU Department of Community Medicine.

He is the chair of the International Society of Research Administrators’ RCR Special Interest Group, and participates in a number of NIH peer review panels dealing with research ethics issues. He also serves on the Executive Advisory Committee of the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative. He directed the Office for Responsible Conduct of Research at Columbia University and the Office of Research Conduct for the City University of New York. He has written and presented extensively in the areas of research ethics and human research protection.

For more than a decade, Vasgird was the Institutional Review Board Chair and Health Research Training Program Director for the New York City Department of Health where he was also responsible for distance learning development among other education and training duties.

-WVU-

gg/06/30/11

CONTACT: Gerrill Griffith, WVU Research Corp.
304.293.3743; Gerrill.Griffith@mail.wvu.edu

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