On Tuesday, The Michael J. Fox Foundation (@MichaelJFoxOrg) hosted a Twitter chat about challenges in clinical trial recruitment. Ninety-three people and organizations participated sending out 626 tweets on the subject. Signaling widespread interest and participation in the chat, #FoxChat trended in the United States, becoming even more popular on Twitter than Christmas! (A trend on Twitter refers to a hashtag-driven topic that is immediately popular at a particular time.)

The conversation kicked off with a question from our moderator, Forbes science journalist Matt Herper. He asked the panel why it’s so crucial to recruit people to participate in clinical trials. Claire Meunier, MJFF’s director of clinical trial strategies, responded, zeroing in on the importance of clinical trial participation:

The other expert Twitter chat panelists were Jamie Roberts, MA, CRRP, clinical trial specialist in recruitment in the NINDS Office of Clinical Research; Nellie High, Med, a psychometrist and research project coordinator at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute (BAI) and Danna Jennings, MD, Senior Director of Clinical Research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders. During the hour-long conversation, participants asked about travel reimbursement, how to solve recruitment challenges and the role doctors should play in encouraging patients to enroll in trials. Fox Trial Finder was cited as one of multiple new online tools to help speed clinical trial recruitment.

 See more tweets from the chat below, or read the entire transcript.