This is the second in our series from MJFF staff on the conferences they’re attending and how they hope to contribute to and benefit from the experience.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) provides more than financial research support. In an effort to overcome the challenge of study participant recruitment, MJFF built Fox Trial Finder to connect interested volunteers with Parkinson’s disease studies they may be eligible for and interested in. Director of Clinical Trial Strategies Claire Meunier helped launch Fox Trial Finder and also works with coordinators of MJFF-supported studies to devise individualized strategies to meet recruitment and retention goals.

Claire has been asked to present at two upcoming conferences on her work with patient engagement, and she talked to FoxFeed about these events.

“Next month I’ll be in Boston for Global Clinical Trials, an event from The Conference Forum, which promotes information exchange among the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. I’m on a panel titled “Designing Patient-centric Protocols to Increase Global Patient Engagement/Reducing Protocol Complexity.” For a panel on reducing complexity, that’s a long title, but I hope our messages will be clear. I’m going to talk about putting oneself in the shoes of the patient when designing the trial and when engaging with potential volunteers.

"In early November I’m headed to Las Vegas to present at the Patient Engagement in Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trials meeting at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. I’ll talk about Fox Trial Finder: the driving need for this tool, the successes we’ve had and the challenges in implementing and running such a program. I’m glad organizers across disease sectors are working together to learn from one another. I’m proud that our work is recognized as a model in the field, but I know I’ll get a lot out of hearing what my peers are up to, too.”

Learn more about clinical trial participation.