Clinical studies are a necessity to aid in medical knowledge. Unlike much of the leg work that will preface clinical studies, once a chemical, medicine, or device gets to the stage of clinical study, human subjects are involved. There are two main types of clinical studies: interventional studies, known as clinical trials, and observational studies. A complete list of both types of clinical studies can be found at clinicaltrials.gov, a website associated with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) came about in 1887 as part of the Marine Hospital Service, which was created to provide relief for seamen who were suffering from disease or disability. Originally, the Marine Hospital Service was located on Staten Island and was charged with the responsibility to check all incoming persons for infectious diseases, mainly cholera and yellow fever. It wasn’t until 1891 that the headquarters of the NIH moved to Washington D.C. Currently the NIH headquarters stands in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH is made up of twenty seven institutes and centers. These include the National Cancer Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute as well as National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. In general, the National Institute of Health strives to improve general health, ensure the nation's capability to prevent disease, expand the knowledge of medicine and science, and to promote scientific integrity.
The NIH is the leading organization behind much of the recent medical research, and the largest source of medical funding in the world. Currently, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the institutes under the NIH, is running clinical studies on a vaccine for Ebola. Also, a NIH funded scientist, Pardis Sabeti, used genomic sequencing to identify the event which originally transmitted Ebola from an animal to human, starting the outbreak in West Africa. It was found by Dr. Sabeti that the strain responsible for the 2014 outbreak can be traced backed to the 2004 Ebola outbreak in Central Africa. The NIH also encompasses the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) which is the leading scientific group behind much of the nation’s biodefense’s. The NIAID works with many other NIH institutes in order to keep the nation safe and citizens healthy.
The clinical study surrounding the Ebola vaccine is one of the types of studies that would be found on clinicaltrials.gov. Once on the website, a visitor can search all studies on a worldwide level. Searches can be done for studies by country, using an interactive map, which shows the number of clinical studies in each country, or using a general search engine. The status of the trial is stated, allowing results to be seen if applicable, as well as allowing a visitor to potentially join a clinical study if possible. Clinicaltrials.gov not only focuses on studies being held in the United States, but as well as worldwide studies and studies specific to other countries. Currently, this site has information on 174,156 studies with locations in all 50 states and in 187 countries.
National Institute of Health - Main Headquarters: Bethesda, Maryland
National Institute of Health - Labs
