Clinical Research

The Clinical Research Services (CRS) is a Shared Resource comprised of the Clinical Trials Office and Office of Protocol Review and Monitoring, as well as resources for contracts and budgeting and protocol development. A Steering Committee, Protocol Review Committee, and Data Safety Monitoring Committee oversee all clinical trial activities for Yale Cancer Center, along with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Human Investigations Committee (HIC) at Yale School of Medicine.

The Clinical Research Teams (CRTs) at Yale Cancer Center promote translational research at Smilow Cancer Hospital through scientific discovery, testing new discoveries in our clinics and, ultimately, turning new innovations into viable disease-specific therapeutics. The Yale Cancer Center CRT leaders and Research Program leaders collaborate to ensure all research opportunities are well coordinated and cooperative translational research is a priority for all Yale Cancer Center members.

In cancer research, a clinical trial is a study conducted with cancer patients, usually to evaluate a new treatment. Each study is designed to answer scientific questions and to find new and better ways to help cancer patients. Yale Cancer Center has numerous clinical trials available for patients who are seeking the most advanced treatments available. The search for good cancer treatments begins with basic research in laboratory and animal studies. The best results of that research are tried in patient studies, hopefully leading to findings that may help many people. Before a new treatment is tried with patients, it is carefully studied in the laboratory. This research points out the new methods most likely to succeed and, as much as possible, shows how to use them safely and effectively. But this early research cannot predict exactly how a new treatment will work with patients.