Dear

Happy Valentines Day to all the CCReW, and researchers recruiting and partnering with CCReW. I'm sending you love for all the time, effort and commitment you have to research, and improving people lives for the future.

I had hoped to be announcing the next round of CCReW travel scholarships this week, but alas, it's proving difficult to find scientific conferences in Aus welcoming of health consumers that we haven't previously supported. So if you know of one that is on in the next 3 months that meets our criteria, and covers a therapeutic area of broad interest, please let me know. 

The elephant in the room remains to be the business model for many scientific conferences (ie the need for corporate (pharma) sponsors/trade exhibition) and the requirement to avoid the potential for advertising to consumers. There is a real need to update legislation (or its interpretation) to recognise the difference between 'a patient/person on the street' and an active 'health consumer partner/advocate to research & industry' in the TGA Advertising legislation. I hope we can progress doing something to make this distinction so everyone can reap the benefits that greater partnership and networking between researchers, industry and consumers will bring.

And to that end, if you are involved in coordinating a conference running this financial year, I'd encourage you to check out Belberry's newest round of participant engagement grants currently open to support you to engage consumers in your conference. The deadline for applications is 10 March 2023. Applicants can apply for a minimum amount of $1,000 and up to a maximum of $20,000 (ex GST). Having supported HSRAANZ to win a grant and execute their plans at their conference last year, these grants really are a great opportunity to go above and beyond for your consumer partners.

As always, there are lots of interesting opportunities and resources you might like to check out below. So until we meet again, wishing the world is kind to you.

• Investigating the feasibility of home-based, remotely-supervised transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) during attention training in children with acquired brain injury. This open label, randomised controlled, blinded trial with two active study arms running in Brisbane is looking for 30 children with a mild or moderate acquired brain injury, aged 8-18 years.
• An Assessment of the Safety and Efficacy of IDM01 capsules on General Fatigue and Cognitive Performance in Recreationally Active Adults. This Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Parallel Arm Clinical Study running in WA is looking for 116 non-smokers engaging in regular resistance exercise 3-5x/week aged 18-50 years.
• The CONSOLE Trial - A Randomised trial for the treatment of painful bony metastases not located in the spine using Conventional or Stereotactic Radiotherapy. This open-label, randomised controlled Phase 3 treatment trial running in NSW, QLD and TAS aims to compare two schedules of radiotherapy in the treatment of painful cancer that has spread to bones not located in the spine. It is looking for 146 people aged 18 years or older with a primary malignancy (excluding seminoma, Small Cell lung Cancer (SCLC) and haematological malignancies) for whom it is safe to deliver SBRT and conventional radiotherapy to all sites of disease.  
• E-learning for early diagnosis of cerebral palsy: a randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of physician e-learning interventions on cerebral palsy diagnostic skills, behaviours and practice. This 3-arm parallel superiority, blinded, randomised controlled trial running in all states and territories of Australia is recruiting 275 paediatric physicians. During the study period, if a physician participant provides a clinical diagnosis of CP to an infant in their regular clinical practice, they are asked to invite the parents of the infant to participate in the study to measure patient outcomes.
• Efficacy of Fucoidan for eosinophilic oesophagitis: a phase 2 pilot study. This blinded, randomised controlled phase 2 treatment trial running in QLD is looking for 36 people aged 18-60 years who have had eosinophilic oesophagitis diagnosed from oesophageal biopsy and are prescribed treatment with steroids and proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy for a minimum of 6 weeks.
• A Safety and Efficacy Study of PVX108 in Children and Adolescents With Peanut Allergy. This blinded, randomised controlled Phase 2 treatment trial running in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth is looking for 90 children and adolescents aged 4-17 years diagnosed with immunoglobulin E (IgE) mediated peanut allergy.
• ADVANCEd NanoTherapies Dual Active Pharmacological Ingredient (Dual-API) Drug-Coated Balloon to Treat De-Novo Lesions in Patients With Symptomatic Stable Coronary Artery Disease. This Single-arm, Multi-center, open-label, Feasibility First-in-human Study running in Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne is looking for 40 people aged 18-89 years expected to undergo an angiographic procedure and coronary percutaneous intervention and treatment with a coronary drug-coated balloon.
• Intranasal Heparin Treatment to Reduce Transmission Among Household Contacts of COVID 19 Positive Adults and Children. This Randomised, Placebo-controlled, Blinded Phase 2/Phase 3 Prevention Trial running in Melbourne is looking for 1100 people > 5 years of age who tests positive via a RAT or a standard PCR nasal swab to SARS-CoV-2 or is a household contact of someone of any age who tests positive.