clinical research fellowship harvard

Foundations of Clinical Research

This Harvard Medical School six-month, application-based certificate program provides the essential skill sets and fundamental knowledge required to begin or expand your clinical research career.

Associated Schools

Harvard Medical School

What you'll learn.

Understand and apply the foundational concepts of biostatistics and epidemiology

Develop a research question and formulate a testable hypothesis

Design and begin to implement a clinical research study

Cultivate the skills required to present a clinical research study

Critically evaluate the research findings in medical literature

Synthesize crucial statistical analyses using Stata software

Course description

The Foundations of Clinical Research program is rooted in the belief that clinical research training is critical to professional development in health care. Clinical research training not only creates potential independent investigators, but also enables clinicians to advance their careers through a greater understanding of research evidence. Designed to provide learners with the foundational knowledge and skill sets required to produce high-quality clinical research, our program will lay the fundamental groundwork in epidemiology and biostatistics required for a multifaceted career in clinical research.

The overarching goal of the Foundations of Clinical Research program is to equip the next generation of researchers with the skill sets essential to evaluating evidence, understanding biostatistics, and beginning their clinical research careers. Our aim is to ensure that learners develop a strong foundation in the design, implementation, analysis and interpretation of clinical research studies.

During the program, our innovative active learning approach emphasizes the traditional tutorial system with weekly live video tutorials, seminars and symposia anchored by 3 live intense weekend online workshops.  The Foundations of Clinical Research program’s six-month online curriculum emphasizes real-time skill-based learning. 

Participants will be eligible for Associate Alumni status upon successful completion of the program. Early tuition and need-based tuition reductions may be available.

Course Outline

Live Workshops

The interactive workshop curriculum will focus on hands-on skill development through active learning. To that end, the intensive schedule is designed to accelerate the growth of high-yield clinical research skills via individual and team-based workshop exercises. Students will be immersed in a dynamic learning environment that encourages collaboration and collegial networking with faculty and peers. 

Essential elements of the workshop include instruction and practical exercises in the core concepts of biostatistics, epidemiology and research question development, as well as critical assessment of the medical literature and practical training in statistical software using real-life datasets. In addition to providing training in mentorship, academic career development and leadership, we create a supportive and active learning environment where opportunities for knowledge retention and networking abound.

Live Symposia, Tutorials and Seminars

Symposia, tutorials and seminars are mandatory and will be delivered live online and organized according to eight specific clinical research topics. 

Eight 3-Hour Symposia

• Instruction on a specific clinical research topic (e.g., cohort study design and interpretation)
• In-depth discussion on a related epidemiology concept (e.g., odds ratio)
• Hands-on guidance for implementing the related analysis with statistical programming in Stata

Eight 1-Hour Tutorials

• Interpret and report on papers related to the specific clinical research topic

Eight 1-Hour Special-Topic Seminars

• The biostatistical and epidemiological concepts to specific clinical research topics with concrete examples

Assignments

All students will be expected to complete all assignments by the due dates. Assignments will be graded as either “pass” or “fail.”

Individual Assignment 1

Individual Research Question and Study Design

• Generate a novel research question in the evidence-based PICO format
• Receive expert faculty review

Individual Assignment 2

Design, Implement and Present an Original Abstract

• Design and implement a clinical research study based on a publicly available dataset
• Analyze and create data visualizations via a user-friendly R Shiny web app
• Write a formal 350-word abstract suitable for submission to an international conference
• Present a digital poster to faculty at Workshop 3

Online Lectures

Research Study Introduction 

• Designing a Clinical Research Study I–III
• Introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine, Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
• Study Design 1 – Observational
• Study Design 2 – Randomized Controlled Trials
• Study Design 3 – Quasi-Experimental Studies
• Introduction to Biostatistics
• An Investigator’s Responsibility for Protection of Research Subjects
• How to Search PubMed
• Overview of Evidence-Based Medicine

Statistical Programming in Stata

• Loading Data
• Basic Programming Commands
• Data Cleansing
• Data Analytics I – Central Tendency
• Data Analytics II – Statistical Testing
• Data Analytics III – Regression Testing

Instructors

Jamie Robertson

Djøra Soeteman

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AIDS Education and Training Center (AETC) Program: Fellowship Opportunity

The Community-Based HIV and Viral Hepatitis Fellowship is recruiting an MD, DO, NP or PA fellow for the 8/1/24-7/31/25 fellowship year. 

Fellows do a combination of primary care along with HIV, HBV, HCV, and latent TB care, learning how to manage all four independently while maintaining primary care skills. The fellowship also focuses on preparing trainees to become teachers, leaders, and mentors for primary care colleagues around the treatment and prevention of these four signature infectious diseases in marginalized populations.

To apply or for more information, please email Philip Bolduc, MD: [email protected]

Research Tips

Legal research databases: Summer 2024 and new grad access policies

As the spring term winds down and you’re thinking ahead to summer, you may be wondering whether and/or how you can use those library databases you’ve enjoyed for your legal research.  Whether you’re about to graduate from HLS or you’re a continuing student looking forward to a summer job, there are online research resources available to you. Read on for information about access to your Bloomberg Law, Lexis, and Westlaw accounts, as well as other library databases.

Bloomberg Law

Returning students’ summer use.

You may continue to use your HLS Bloomberg Law account for any purpose. If you haven’t already signed up for a Bloomberg Law account, go to www.bloomberglaw.com/activate (you must use your Harvard email. No activation code is necessary).

New Graduates  

All graduates have continuous access for six months following graduation, so Spring 2024 graduates will have access through November 30, 2024. This access is automatic (no registration required) and is unlimited and unrestricted.

If you have any questions, please contact our Bloomberg Law representative at HLS, Miche Jean .

Lexis Nexis

You will automatically have free unlimited use of your law school Lexis+ ID this summer. This includes workplace-related research (but check with your employer first; many firms prefer that summer associates use a firm-issued Lexis ID for client work).

After graduation, you have automatic extended access to your HLS Lexis+ account for six months, through December 31, 2024. No registration is required; just sign into your account as usual and your ID will change over to a graduate ID on July 1, 2024. This ID also grants you access to the Graduate Home Page and gives you a choice of graduation gift . Remember to redeem your LexisNexis Rewards points by June 30, 2024!

Also, if you’re going to be doing public interest work, the ASPIRE Program may be for you. It provides twelve months of free access to federal and state cases, regulations, law reviews, Shepard’s, and Matthew Bender treatises to graduates who are engaged in verifiable 501(c)(3) public interest work.

If you have any questions, please contact our Lexis representative at HLS, Adam Masarek .

You can use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw, Practical Law, and the Practice Ready solutions, over the summer for non-commercial research. You can turn to these resources to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills, but you cannot use them in situations where you are billing a client. Examples of permissible uses for your academic password include the following:

• Summer coursework
• Research assistant assignments
• Law Review or Journal research
• Moot Court research
• Nonprofit work (either required for graduation or as part of a class)
• Clinical work
• Externship sponsored by the school

You do not have to do anything to gain access to these tools over the summer.

You have access to Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw and Practical Law, for six months after graduation by registering for “Grad Elite” access here (or go to www.lawschool.tr.com ; log in, and use the drop-down menu by your name to go to Grad Elite Status). “Grad Elite” access gives you 60 hours of usage per month on these products per month to gain understanding, build confidence in your research skills, and prepare for the bar exam. You cannot use it in situations where you are billing a client.

If you have any questions, please contact our Westlaw representative at HLS, Mark Frongillo .

Other Databases

Continuing students have full access over the summer to most other online library resources at Harvard– from HeinOnline to JSTOR – simply by using your Harvard Key.   

New alumni have access to some databases, including HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library and the CQ Press Library (a great source of information and data on government and politics).  Visit our Library Services for HLS Alumni research guide for information about how to claim your Harvard Key and get access, plus learn about other great resources to help you stay connected.

We’d love to hear from you.  Reach out with any questions about summer access, alumni access, or anything research-related over the summer and beyond.  Current contact information is available on our Ask a Librarian! page.

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Oral hygiene can reduce risk of some cancers

April 18, 2024—A healthy mouth microbiome can help prevent a number of diseases, including cancer , according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Mingyang Song .

Song, associate professor of clinical epidemiology and nutrition, was among the experts quoted in an April 4 Everyday Health article about the connections between mouth, gum, and tooth health and overall health. “Alterations in the oral microbiome can cause systemic inflammation and increase disease risk indirectly,” Song explained. Microbes in the mouth can also travel to other parts of the body and directly increase the risk of conditions like diabetes , heart disease , Alzheimer’s disease , and various cancers, he added.

Previous studies co-authored by Song have shed light on the oral microbiome’s impacts on the risk of stomach and colorectal cancers. One study found that people with a history of gum disease have a 52% greater chance of developing stomach cancer compared with those without gum disease, and that losing two or more teeth raised stomach cancer risk by 33%. Another study found that people with gum disease had a 17% greater chance than those without gum disease of developing a serrated polyp—a type of polyp that can lead to colon cancer. The study also found that people who had lost at least four teeth had a 20% higher risk of a serrated polyp.

The takeaway, Song said, is to keep the mouth microbiome healthy. This can be accomplished through practicing oral hygiene—visiting the dentist regularly and brushing, flossing, and using mouthwash daily—as well as maintaining an overall healthy lifestyle through diet , exercise , and avoiding smoking .

Read the article in Everyday Health: The Health of Your Mouth May Affect Your Risk of Colorectal Cancer

– Maya Brownstein

Image: iStock/fizkes

• Clinical Physics
• Translational Physics
• Proton Engineers
• Physics Residents
• Information Technology
• Past Members

Certification

Therapeutic Physics, American Board of Radiology

AAPM Jack Fowler Junior Investigators Award, 2004

Publications in Radiation Oncology and Medical Physics

Yan S, Lu HM, Flanz J, Adams J, Trofimov A, Bortfeld T. Reassessment of the necessity of the proton gantry:  analysis of beam orientations from 4332 treatments at the F.H. Burr proton center over the past 10 years. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2016

Moteabbed M, Trofimov A, Sharp GC, Wang Y, Zietman AL, Efstathiou JA, Lu HM. A prospective comparison of the effects of interfractional variations on proton therapy and IMRT for prostate cancer. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2016

Patel AV, Lane AM, Morrison MA, Trofimov AV, Shih HA, Gragoudas ES, Kim IK. Visual Outcomes after Proton Beam Irradiation for Choroidal Melanomas Involving the Fovea. Ophthalmology 2015 

M oteabbed M, Sharp GC, Wang Y, Trofimov A, Efstathiou JA, Lu HM. Validation of a deformable image registration technique for cone beam CT-based dose verification. Medical Physics 2015;42:196-205

Cheney MD, Chen YL, Lim R, Winrich BK, Grosu AL, Trofimov AV, Depauw N, Shih HA, Schwab JH, Hornicek FJ, DeLaney TF. 18F-FMISO PET/CT visualization of tumor hypoxia in patients with chordoma of the mobile and sacrococcygeal spine. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2014

Safai S, Trofimov A, Adams JA, Engelsman M, Bortfeld T. The rationale for intensity-modulated proton therapy in geometrically challenging cases. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2013;58:6337-6353.

Giantsoudi D, Grassberger C, Craft D, Niemierko A, Trofimov A, Paganetti H. Linear energy transfer (LET)-Guided Optimization in intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT): feasibility study and clinical potential. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2013;87:216-222.

Wang. Y, Efstathiou JE, Lu H, Sharp GC, Trofimov A. Hypofractionated proton therapy for prostate cancer: dose delivery uncertainty due to inter-fractional motion. Medical Physics 2013;40:071714

Zeng C, Giantsoudi D, Grassberger C, Goldberg S, Niemierko A, Paganetti H, Efstathiou JA, Trofimov A.  Maximizing the biological effect of proton dose delivered with scanned beams via inhomogeneous daily dose distributions. Medical Physics 2013;40:051708.

De Amorim Bernstein K, Sethi R, Trofimov A, Zeng C, Fullerton B, Yeap BY, Ebb D, Tarbell NJ, Yock TI, Macdonald SM. Early clinical outcomes using proton radiation for children with central nervous system atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumors. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2013;86:114-20.

Trofimov A, Unkelbach J, DeLaney TF, Bortfeld T. Visualization of a variety of possible dosimetric outcomes in radiation therapy using dose-volume histogram bands. Practical Radiation Oncology 2012;2:164-171. 

Chen W, Unkelbach J, Trofimov A, Madden T, Kooy H, Bortfeld T, Craft D. Including robustness in multi-criteria optimization for intensity-modulated proton therapy. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2012;57:591-608.

Wang Y, Efstathiou J, Sharp G, Lu HM, Ciernik IF, Trofimov A. Evaluation of the dosimetric impact of inter-fractional anatomical variations on prostate proton therapy using daily in-room CT images. Medical Physics 2011

Grassberger C, Trofimov A, Lomax A, Paganetti H. Variations in linear energy transfer within clinical proton therapy fields and the potential for biological treatment planning. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2011

Trofimov A, NguyenPL, EfstathiouJA, Wang Y, LuHM, EngelsmanM, MerrickS, ChengCW, WongJR, ZietmanAL. Interfractional variations in the set-up of pelvic bony anatomy and soft tissue, and their implication on the delivery of proton therapy for localized prostate cancer. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2011; 80:928-937.

Ding A, Gu J, Trofimov A, Xu XG.  Monte Carlo calculation of imaging doses from diagnostic multi-detector CT and kilovoltage cone-beam CT as part of prostate cancer treatment plans. Medical Physics 2010; 37:6199-6204.

MacDonald SM, Trofimov A, Safai S, Adams J, Fullerton B, Ebb D, Tarbell NJ, Yock T. Proton Radiotherapy for Pediatric Central Nervous System Germ Cell Tumors: Early Clinical Outcomes. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2011; 79:121-129

Nguyen PL, Chen RC, Hoffman KE, Trofimov A, Efstathiou JA, Coen JJ, Shipley WU, Zietman AL, Talcott JA. Rectal Dose-Volume Histogram Parameters Are Associated with Long-Term Patient-Reported Gastrointestinal Quality of Life After Conventional and High-Dose Radiation for Prostate Cancer: A Subgroup Analysis of a Randomized Trial. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2010; 78:1081-5

Suit H, Delaney T, Goldberg S, Paganetti H, Clasie B, Gerweck L, Niemierko A, Hall E, Flanz J, Hallman J, Trofimov A. Proton vs carbon ion beams in the definitive radiation treatment of cancer patients. Radiotherapy and Oncology 2010; 95:3-22.

Kooy HM, Clasie BM, Lu HM, Madden TM, Bentefour H, Depauw N, Adams JA, Trofimov AV, Demaret D, Delaney TF, Flanz JB. A case study in proton pencil-beam scanning delivery. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics. 2010; 76:624-30.

Efstathiou JA, Trofimov AV, Zietman AL. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of protons: an evidence-based review of the role of particle therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer. Cancer J. 2009; 15:312-8.

Seco J, Robinson D, Trofimov A, Paganetti H. Breathing interplay effects during proton beam scanning: simulation and statistical analysis. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2009; 54:N283-294.

Vrancic C, Trofimov A, Chan TCY, Sharp G, Bortfeld T. Experimental evaluation of a robust optimization method for IMRT of moving targets. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2009; 54: 2901-2914.

Bortfeld T, Chan TCY, Trofimov A, Tsitsiklis JN. Robust management of motion uncertainty in intensity-modulated radiation therapy. Operations Research 2008; 56:1461-1473

Nguyen PL, Trofimov A, Zietman AL. Proton beam or intensity-modulated therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer? Oncology 2008; 22:748-754.

Trofimov A, Vrancic C, Chan TCY, Sharp GC, Bortfeld T. Tumor trailing startegy for intensity-modulated radiation therapy of moving targets. Medical Physics 2008; 35:1718-1733

MacDonald SM, Safai S, Trofimov A, Wolfgang J, Fullerton B, Yeap BY, Bortfeld T, Tarbell NJ, Yock T. Proton radiotherapy for childhood ependymoma: initial clinical outcomes and dose comparisons. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2008; 71:979-987

Suit H, Kooy H,Trofimov A, Farr J, Munzenrider J, DeLaney T, Loeffler J, Clasie B, Safai S, Paganetti H. Should positive phase III clinical trial data be required before proton beam therapy is more widely adopted? No. Radiotherapy and Oncology 2008; 86:148-153.

Trofimov A, Nguyen PL, Coen JJ, Doppke KP, Schneider RJ, Adams JA, Bortfeld TR, Zietman AL, DeLaney TF, Shipley WU. Radiotherapy treatment of early stage prostate cancer with IMRT and protons: a treatment planning comparsion. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2007; 69:444-453 (follow-up: Letter to the Editor. In reply to Ms.Albertini et al. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2007; 69:1334-1335)

Sharp GC, Lu HM, Trofimov A, Tang X, Jiang SB, Turcotte J, Gierga DP, Chen GTY, Hong TS. Assessing residual motion for gated proton-beam radiotherapy.Journal of Radiation Research 2007; 48:A55-59.

Censor Y, Bortfeld T, Martin B, Trofimov A. A unified approach for inversion problems in intensity-modulated radiation therapy. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2006; 51:2353-65.

Trofimov A, Rietzel E, Lu H, Martin B, Jiang S, Chen G, Bortfeld T. Temporo-spatial IMRT optimization: Concepts, implementation and initial results. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2005; 50:2779-98.

Paganetti H, Jiang H, Trofimov A. 4D Monte Carlo simulation of proton beam scanning: modeling of variations in time and space to study the interplay between scanning pattern and time-dependent patient geometry. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2005; 50:983-90.

DeLaney TF, Trofimov AV, Engelsman M, Suit HD. Advanced-technology radiation therapy in the management of bone and soft tissue sarcomas. Cancer Control 2005; 12:27-35

Weber DC, Trofimov AV, Delaney TF, Bortfeld T. A treatment planning comparison of intensity modulated photon and proton therapy for paraspinal sarcomas. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2004; 58:1596-606.

Suit H, Goldberg S, Niemierko A, Trofimov A, Adams J, Paganetti H, Chen GTY, Bortfeld T, Rosenthal S, Loeffler J, DeLaney T. Protons to Replace Photon Beams in Radical Dose Treatments. Acta Oncologica 2003; 42:800-8.

Trofimov A, Bortfeld T. Optimization of beam parameters and treatment planning for intensity modulated proton therapy. Technology in Cancer Research and Treatment 2003; 2:437-44.

Trofimov A, Bortfeld T. Beam delivery sequencing for intensity modulated proton therapy. Physics in Medicine and Biology 2003; 48:1321-31.

Publications in High-Energy Physics (with g-2 Collaboration, Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Bennett GW, et al. Improved limit on the muon electric dipole moment. Physical Review D 2009; 80:052008.

Bennett GW et al. Search for Lorentz and CPT violation effects in muon spin precession. Physical Review Letters 2008; 100:091602.

Bennett GW et al Statistical equations and methods applied to the precision muon (g-2) experiment at BNL. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 2007; 579:1096-1116.

Bennett GW et al. Final report of the E821 muon anomalous magnetic moment measurement at BNL. Physical Review D 2006; 73:072003.

Bennett GW et al. Measurement of the negative muon anomalous moment to 0.7 ppm. Physical Review Letters 2004; 92:161802.

Bennett GW et al. Measurement of the positive muon anomalous moment to 0.7 ppm. Physical Review Letters 2002; 89:101804.

Brown HN et al. Precise measurement of the positive muon anomalous magnetic moment. Physical Review Letters 2001; 86:2227-31.

Sedykh SA et al. Electromagnetic calorimeters for the BNL muon (g-2) experiment. Nuclear Instruments and Methods A 2000; 455:346-60.

Brown HN et al. Improved measurement of the positive muon anomalous magnetic moment. Physical Review D 2000; 62:091101.

Carey RM et al. New measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the positive muon. Physical Review Letters 1999; 82:1632-35.

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Two from MIT awarded 2024 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans

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MIT graduate student Riyam Al Msari and alumna Francisca Vasconcelos ’20 are among the 30 recipients of this year’s Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. In addition, two Soros winners will begin PhD studies at MIT in the fall: Zijian (William) Niu in computational and systems biology and Russell Legate-Yang in economics.

The P.D. Soros Fellowships for New Americans program recognizes the potential of immigrants to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture, and academia by providing $90,000 in graduate school financial support over two years.

Riyam Al Msari

Riyam Al Msari, born in Baghdad, Iraq, faced a turbulent childhood shaped by the 2003 war. At age 8, her life took a traumatic turn when her home was bombed in 2006, leading to her family's displacement to Iraqi Kurdistan. Despite experiencing educational and ethnic discriminatory challenges, Al Msari remained undeterred, wholeheartedly embracing her education.

Soon after her father immigrated to the United States to seek political asylum in 2016, Al Msari’s mother was diagnosed with head and neck cancer, leaving Al Msari, at just 18, as her mother’s primary caregiver. Despite her mother’s survival, Al Msari witnessed the limitations and collateral damage caused by standardized cancer therapies, which left her mother in a compromised state. This realization invigorated her determination to pioneer translational cancer-targeted therapies.

In 2018, when Al Msari was 20, she came to the United States and reunited with her father and the rest of her family, who arrived later with significant help from then-senator Kamala Harris’s office. Despite her Iraqi university credits not transferring, Al Msari persevered and continued her education at Houston Community College as a Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) scholar, and then graduated magna cum laude as a Regents Scholar from the University of California at San Diego’s bioengineering program, where she focused on lymphatic-preserving neoadjuvant immunotherapies for head and neck cancers.

As a PhD student in the MIT Department of Biological Engineering, Al Masri conducts research in the Irvine and Wittrup labs to employ engineering strategies for localized immune targeting of cancers. She aspires to establish a startup that bridges preclinical and clinical oncology research, specializing in the development of innovative protein and biomaterial-based translational cancer immunotherapies.

Francisca Vasconcelos ’20

In the early 1990s, Francisca Vasconcelos’s parents emigrated from Portugal to the United States in pursuit of world-class scientific research opportunities. Vasconcelos was born in Boston while her parents were PhD students at MIT and Harvard University. When she was 5, her family relocated to San Diego, when her parents began working at the University of California at San Diego.

Vasconcelos graduated from MIT in 2020 with a BS in electrical engineering, computer science, and physics. As an undergraduate, she performed substantial research involving machine learning and data analysis for quantum computers in the MIT Engineering Quantum Systems Group, under the guidance of Professor William Oliver. Drawing upon her teaching and research experience at MIT, Vasconcelos became the founding academic director of The Coding School nonprofit’s Qubit x Qubit initiative, where she taught thousands of students from different backgrounds about the fundamentals of quantum computation.

In 2020, Vasconcelos was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where she pursued an MSc in statistical sciences and an MSt in philosophy of physics. At Oxford, she performed substantial research on uncertainty quantification of machine learning models for medical imaging in the OxCSML group. She also played for Oxford’s Women’s Blues Football team. 

Now a computer science PhD student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, Vasconcelos is a member of both the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab and CS Theory Group. Her research interests lie at the intersection of quantum computation and machine learning. She is especially interested in developing efficient classical algorithms to learn about quantum systems, as well as quantum algorithms to improve simulations of quantum processes. In doing so, she hopes to find meaningful ways in which quantum computers can outperform classical computers.

The P.D. Soros Fellowship attracts more than 1,800 applicants annually. MIT students interested in applying may contact Kim Benard, associate dean of distinguished fellowships in Career Advising and Professional Development.

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An Open Comparative Study of the Effectiveness and Incomparable Study of the Immunogenicity and Safety of the Vaccine (CoviVac) for Adults Aged 60 Years and Older

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Inclusion Criteria:

Volunteers must meet the following inclusion criteria:

Type of participants

• Healthy volunteers or volunteers with a history of stable diseases that do not meet any of the criteria for non-inclusion in the study.

Other inclusion criteria

• Written informed consent of volunteers to participate in a clinical trial
• Volunteers who are able to fulfill the Protocol requirements (i.e., fill out a self-observation Diary, come to control visits).

Exclusion Criteria:

SARS-CoV-2 infection • A case of established COVID-19 disease confirmed by PCR and/or ELISA in the last 6 months.

Diseases or medical conditions

• Serious post-vaccination reaction (temperature above 40 C, hyperemia or edema more than 8 cm in diameter) or complication (collapse or shock-like condition that developed within 48 hours after vaccination; convulsions, accompanied or not accompanied by a feverish state) to any previous vaccination.
• Burdened allergic history (anaphylactic shock, Quincke's edema, polymorphic exudative eczema, serum sickness in the anamnesis, hypersensitivity or allergic reactions to the introduction of any vaccines in the anamnesis, known allergic reactions to vaccine components, etc.).
• Guillain-Barre syndrome (acute polyradiculitis) in the anamnesis.
• The axillary temperature at the time of vaccination is more than 37.0 ° C.
• Acute infectious diseases (recovery earlier than 4 weeks before vaccination) according to anamnesis.
• Donation of blood or plasma (in the amount of 450 ml or more) less than 2 months before inclusion in the study.
• Severe and/or uncontrolled diseases of the cardiovascular, bronchopulmonary, neuroendocrine systems, gastrointestinal tract, liver, kidneys, hematopoietic, immune systems.
• Is registered at the dispensary for tuberculosis, leukemia, oncological diseases, autoimmune diseases.
• Any confirmed or suspected immunosuppressive or immunodeficiency condition in the anamnesis.
• Splenectomy in the anamnesis.
• Neutropenia (decrease in the absolute number of neutrophils less than 1000/mm3), agranulocytosis, significant blood loss, severe anemia (hemoglobin less than 80 g/l) according to anamnesis.
• Anorexia according to anamnesis.

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Developing ash-free high-strength spherical carbon catalyst supports

• Domestic Catalysts
• Published: 28 June 2013
• Volume 5 , pages 156–163, ( 2013 )

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• V. V. Gur’yanov 1 ,
• V. M. Mukhin 1 &
• A. A. Kurilkin 1  

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The possibility of using furfurol for the production of ash-free high-strength active carbons with spheroidal particles as adsorbents and catalyst supports is substantiated. A single-stage process that incorporates the resinification of furfurol, the molding of a spherical product, and its hardening while allowing the process cycle time and the cost of equipment to be reduced is developed. Derivatographic, X-ray diffraction, mercury porometric, and adsorption studies of the carbonization of the molded spherical product are performed to characterize the development of the primary and porous structures of carbon residues. Ash-free active carbons with spheroidal particles, a full volume of sorbing micro- and mesopores (up to 1.50 cm 3 /g), and a uniquely high mechanical strength (its abrasion rate is three orders of magnitude lower than that of industrial active carbons) are obtained via the vapor-gas activation of a carbonized product. The obtained active carbons are superior to all known foreign and domestic analogues and are promising for the production of catalysts that operate under severe regimes, i.e., in moving and fluidized beds.

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OAO Elektrostal’ Research and Production Association Neorganika, Elektrostal’, Moscow oblast, 144001, Russia

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Original Russian Text © V.V. Gur’yanov, V.M. Mukhin, A.A. Kurilkin, 2013, published in Kataliz v Promyshlennosti.

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Gur’yanov, V.V., Mukhin, V.M. & Kurilkin, A.A. Developing ash-free high-strength spherical carbon catalyst supports. Catal. Ind. 5 , 156–163 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2070050413020062

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Received : 08 December 2011

Published : 28 June 2013

Issue Date : April 2013

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1134/S2070050413020062

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