At any time, there are hundreds of thousands of clinical trials and research projects taking place across the world in a wide range of disease and health areas including stroke, cancer, asthma and more.
Those who participate in clinical trials and other studies are often the first to access and benefit from new and emerging treatments across a range of areas, and have the satisfaction of one helping someone else with an illness, providing important scientific information that will be used to develop or improve disease treatments.
There are a number of research projects at HMRI that allow eligible people to access emerging medical research and treatments in a range of areas. Learn more about these projects and how you can become involved below.
Research Register
The Research Register recruits a central database of people who are interested in contributing to medical research. The Register helps researchers access to the type of people they require in their efforts to improve the health of the community.
Learn more about the research register
Stroke Research Register - Hunter
The Stroke Research Register - Hunter recruits a database of people with stroke, living in the Hunter region, who are willing to be contacted to participate in research at a later date. The Register will be a centralised process for contacting people with stroke who would like to take part in the research.
Research Projects Currently Recruiting
We are inviting healthy adults to provide a blood sample that we can use to establish a normal reference range for a potential new diagnostic test.
Click here for more info
Are you concerned about the rise in vaping amongst youth? Although vaping amongst youth can cause serious adverse health outcomes (e.g. lung injury, poisoning and burns), the number of youth trying vaping is continuing to rise.
The research team from the University of Newcastle are testing the use of a text-message program sent to parents and their child (aged 12-15 years) to prevent youth from taking up vapes.
Researchers from the Food and Nutrition Research Program are conducting an online questionnaire in pregnant women about their food and nutrient intake, nutrition self-efficacy, and how they access pregnancy nutrition information.
Click here to find out more
Research indicates there is an unmet need, to test an individualised nutrition and physical activity program for people with obesity-associated asthma that addresses nutritional and physical activity inadequacies, while also considering patient preferences, behaviours, and comorbidities. The purpose of this study is to address this unmet need, by testing the first individualised obesity management approach for adults with asthma.
Click here to find out more
Are you interested in participating in an intervention for addictive eating? We are seeking individuals from the Hunter region with addictive overeating behaviours to determine if a 3-month online program with a dietitian to manage addictive eating behaviours affects brain activation and blood markers.
Click here to find out more
We aim to investigate the impact of running on physical and mental health. If you are a healthy adult aged between 30 - 65, run at least 5km a week and live within the Hunter region, you may be eligible to participate in this study.
Click here to find out more
Are you aged 65 years or more? Do you live at home? Are you interested in improving your health and wellbeing? Researchers from the University of Newcastle are seeking volunteers to help test whether a new internet-based program which supports older people to remain socially connected is helpful in improving their wellbeing.
Click here to find out more
Researchers want to work with Colorectal Cancer survivors and health professionals to co-design a digital intervention to help survivors improve their physical activity, diet and sleep quality and reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Click here to find out more
Researchers from the University of Newcastle and HMRI are seeking to work with informal female carers of stroke survivors to develop strategies and tools to support carers to self-manage their emotional and physical health.
If you’re a woman who provides care or has provided care to someone who has had a stroke, we would appreciate your help by sharing your experiences in our focus group.
Researchers need people who have had a stroke, or are carers for someone who has had a stroke, to participate in a community based program to support stroke recovery for stroke survivors. The aim of the group is to incorporate exercise, socialising and art-based thinking activities to improve recovery and quality of life for people living with stroke.
The purpose of the research is to test the stability of a newly developed questionnaire that measures data related to the food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing of teachers. Previous research in teacher health and wellbeing is limited in its consideration of food and nutrition-related factors and their potential contribution to an individual’s overall health and wellbeing. The data from this study will create a baseline database to inform a pilot intervention to enhance the food and nutrition related health and wellbeing practices of teachers.
Click here for more information or If you would like to participate, please click here to complete the recruitment survey.
Co-design a cooking program to help stroke survivors follow a Mediterranean-style diet
Researchers need stroke survivors to help co-design a cooking program.
The intervention will support people who have had a stroke to plan, prepare and eat healthy meals to reduce their risk of having another stroke. Volunteers are needed to ensure the program meets the needs of stroke survivors.
Click here to find out more
As many as 1 in 2 women are above a healthy weight range when trying for a baby and 1 in 7 couple have trouble falling pregnant.
PreBabe is a world-first clinic trial exploring how losing weight prior to pregnancy can improve the long-term health of mothers and babies.
Click here to find out more
We’re inviting women with MS or NMOSD who have already used ART to take part in surveys and interviews to discuss if and where they felt there were gaps in their pregnancy planning and fertility treatment care.
The purpose of this study is to improve the quality of care that women with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder (NMOSD) receive while using Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
Have you recently been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease?
Our researchers invite you to participate in a study which will explore how diet affects and triggers Crohn’s disease.
Many people with Crohn’s disease believe that diet is important in managing their condition, however, there is limited data on precisely which specific food components trigger symptoms.
Several different diets have been trialed to date, however, there is no consensus on a specific diet that can be recommended for the management Crohn’s disease.
This study will investigate how different food components affect the immune system and contribute to symptoms.
Here at HMRI, Professor Michael Breakspear is heading the regional arm of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT), which is a national multi-site project to pre-screen potential participants for local clinical trials into Dementia.
One of the current local trials is the AHEAD trial which is testing the drug lecanemab’s (BAN2401) ability to prevent cognitive deterioration before noticeable signs of Alzheimer’s disease have commenced.
Watch this brief NBN news clip where Michael explains our study here at HMRI.
If you would like to become a volunteer please register your interest on the ADNeT volunteer portal.
Are you a carer for someone with advanced cancer?
Researchers are currently looking at ways they can provide support to carers of people with advanced cancer.
We invite adults with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) to participate in the international NF1 cutaneous neurofibroma consortium project which aims to improve our understanding of how genetics affects the number of skin neurofibromas a person with NF1 may develop.
Click here to find out more
We would like to invite you to complete the Digestive Health & Wellbeing Survey (DHWS) and the Structured Assessment of Gastrointestinal Symptoms Scale (SAGIS). These surveys contribute to digestive health research by providing information that will allow us to better characterise gastrointestinal problems.
They will ask for information about your gut symptoms, anxiety and depression, sleep, smoking and alcohol intake. This helps us understand why some people develop conditions and others do not. We would like people with and without gut problems to participate
Click here to learn more about this survey and to participate
Researchers are inviting people with asthma to participate in a study aiming to understand breathlessness
Click here to find out more
We are conducting a research study into an early intervention for cough following an upper respiratory tract infection, also known as the 'common cold'
Click here to find out more
Researchers are looking for people with debilitating fatigue after stroke to test a wakefulness medication called modafinil.
Click here to find out more
The Breathing for Life Trial Nutrition Study: A study of maternal and infant diet and nutritional health and its relation to respiratory health.
FIND OUT ABOUT
CLINICAL TRIALS
At any time, there are thousands of clinical trials taking place across the world in a wide range of disease and health areas. Those who participate in clinical trials and other studies are often the first to access and benefit from new and emerging treatments across a range of areas.
The Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry is an online registry that allows you to search for clinical trials currently available in Australia and New Zealand.
You can search the ANZCTR by location and disease or health area.
The search function on ANZCTR allows you to conduct either a basic search or an advanced search of clinical trials available on the ANZCTR database. Once you find a relevant trial, you will be able to contact the health care or research professional listed as the 'public contact' on the trial record for more information.
If you wish to search of clinical trials for a local trial, try putting the location and health or disease area in the search field. For example, Asthma, Newcastle.
To find out more information about how to be part of clinical trial, the first important step is to find out more information about clinical trials in general and what is involved in being part of a clinical trial.
There is a lot of information available online about the clinical trial process, the ethics and regulation of clinical trials and why a person would want to be a part of a trial in Australia.
A good place to start is the Australian Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council.
You can find out a great deal of information about clinical trials by visiting the site below.
Who Can Help?
You can also talk to any health professional involved in your care about upcoming clinical trials. This includes general practitioners (GPs), specialists, or nursing or allied health professionals. Your health care team may be able to provide general information about clinical trials and could have information on clinical trials that are relevant to you.
Support groups or consumer health organisations with an interest in a particular disease or condition that you are interested in may also have information on trials, or be able to provide contact information for other patients who have been involved in trials.