2024 HIV and TB CLINICAL RESEARCH METHODS SHORT COURSE 13th August to 24th October 2024
HATTP hosted a short course focussed on clinical research methods for the conduct of HIV and TB clinical studies. The course consisted of 6 sessions held fortnightly (mainly on Tuesday evenings from 17:00 to 19:00) from 13 August to 24 October 2024. A mix of Zoom and in-person sessions were held.
Thirteen applicants from various UCT units and divisions such as CIDRI-Africa, Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, VUKA, Internal Medicine and SATVI as well as an applicant from the Clinical Mycobacteriology and Epidemiology Group at Stellenbosch University were accepted to attend the course.
Faculty members who led the sessions were:
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University of Cape Town |
Johns Hopkins University |
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Professor Graeme Meintjes |
Professor Jonathan Golub |
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Dr Tammy Phillips |
Dr Aletta Nonyane |
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Dr Chido Chinogurei |
Dr Kate Shearer |
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Session 1: Study Rationale and Design – HELD IN PERSON Presenters: Graeme Meintjes |
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Session 2: Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan - HELD ON ZOOM Presenters: Aletta Nonyane and Kate Shearer |
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Session 3: Data collection and management using REDCap - HELD AS HYBRID Presenters: Chido Chinogurei |
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Session 4: Data Summaries and Initial Visualization - HELD AS HYBRID Presenters: Tammy Phillips and Aletta Nonyane |
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Session 5: Data Analysis and Visualization for Manuscript – HELD ON ZOOM Presenters: Aletta Nonyane and Bruno Andrade (FioCruz Institute in Brazil) |
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Session 6: Write up of Manuscript and Trouble Shooting – HELD IN PERSON Presenters: Full Faculty and Gary Maartens (UCT Division of Clinical Pharmacology) |
Attendees received reading material before each session and a published manuscript by Dr Charlotte Schutz from the Department of Medicine was used as the source of data for analysis : PLOS Medicine | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002840 July 5, 2019
Practicals were included in both the Data Collection and Management session and the Data Summaries and Visualization session using REDCap and Jamovi programs respectively.
“Office hours” were available on two occasions for attendees, giving them opportunities to informally ask questions about the content of the previous sessions and any questions they had about their own studies.
We were privileged to have two special lectures:
Professor Bruno Andrade from Fiocruz Institute, Brazil who shared his exciting and innovative expertise around data visualization.
Professor Gary Maartens, Emeritus Professor from Division of Clinical Pharmacology who discussed “Writing Scientific Papers”.
We were fortunate to host the US Faculty from Johns Hopkins University at the final session of the course on 24th October. This was a rewarding 4-hour session where, following the presentation by Professor Maartens, the attendees presented their proposed research ideas, receiving feedback from their colleagues and the Faculty.
Final comments from the attendees included:
“Very useful course for MMed registrar”
“Good to see how PIs get from research question to implementation”
“Found the CRF session on REDCap and Jamovi session good”
“Enjoyed the session on writing and also Jamovi session”
“Gained a better perspective and appreciation of the time and effort to build a manuscript”
“Found the session on data visualization very cool”
“Appreciated the discussion platform and the data visualization session”
Thanks
Professor Meintjes closed the course by thanking the attendees for their participation and expressed the hope that despite the full 6 sessions that covered overviews of each topic in the research study journey, they gained valuable insights and that it opened opportunities to network with other participants.
He also thanked the local and US Faculty for their excellent and inspiring input over the 3 months of the course.
