Position: Graduate Students, Pre & Post-Doctoral Trainees, Faculty

Topic: Career Development

Description:

Successful career development grants need a strong research concept, a solid career development plan, and skillful writing. CCTS Grant Writing Coaching Groups can help support you! Modeled after successful formats from the National Research Mentoring Network, these small groups are geared toward senior postdocs writing K99/R00 proposals and junior faculty writing other types of K grants. (Other types of career development proposals are also welcome.) With support from peers and a senior faculty coach with NIH reviewing experience, 4-5 participants will work together to refine their Specific Aims pages, sketches, and career development/training plans.

Current meetings are on Tuesdays at 12 PM (5 openings) via Zoom.

Eligibility:

To participate, you must

• Be a senior postdoc or junior faculty member planning to submit a K99, other types of K proposal, or similar career development proposals like AHA or ALA.
• Have an aims page drafted (no matter how rough)
• Have identified a primary mentor
• Planning to submit a proposal for deadlines in February 2026 (or later) 

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Clinical Trial Operations/Finances

Description:

The CCTS Master Class seminar series helps clinicians, research coordinators/specialists and other health research personnel develop a better understanding of conducting human subjects research at UIC. These immersive training workshops enable participants to implement best practices for human research subject protection, recruitment, study conduct, and data safety/security.

The Master Class on Financial Management: Post award will be held over 2 days, about 2 hours per day, and will cover post-award and activities related to financial management in the post-award period. 

When: Wednesday, January 28th, from 1PM-3PM and Thursday, January 29th, from 1PM-3PM  

Register for Zoom link! 

*The program will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to registrants for this seminar

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Team Science

Description:

When working with a research team (or multiple teams), good communication is critical for making progress and ultimately for successful completion of the project. This session will focus on communication, its barriers, and how to overcome those barriers to achieve programmatic objectives.

Speaker: 
Amy Kennedy-Krage, MBA, MSW
Co-Director of Clinical Research Operations 
Clinical Research Center 

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #7: Leadership and Professionalism
Core Competency #8: Communication & Teamwork

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Clinical Research

Description:

This presentation will be an overview of clinical trial designs, with an emphasis on the design of FDA regulated clinical trials.

Speaker: 
Darlene Kitterman, MBA
Director, Clinical Trials Office
University of Illinois Cancer Center

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #1: Scientific Concepts & Research Design

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Topic: Biomedical Informatics/Data Science

Description:

QUICKSet, or “Query UIC Knowledge Set,” is the CCTS Biomedical Informatics Core built version of the i2b2 (Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside) framework. The purpose of this tool is to allow researchers to access de-identified clinical data from the UI Health system to obtain aggregate patient counts. QUICKSet can facilitate a study by helping researchers to quickly establish the feasibility of carrying out a research study or clinical trial, work through hypothesis creation by continually modifying their own searches, and to identify potential cohorts for clinical trials.

Completion of this training module is required to gain access to the QUICKSet system. To request a consultation or supplementary service at CCTS, please visit Research Ally.

Topic: Human Subject Protections

Description:

CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training is a human research protections training program designed especially for community partners. If you will be involved in research and responsible for recruiting research participants, obtaining informed consent, or collecting data, this training is for you.  This course will cover:

• Introduction to Research: The basic terminology, activities, and people involved in research and various ethical considerations.
• Research History: Some research abuses that have happened in the past and the rules we have now to prevent those abuses.  This module also introduces the goals of community engagement in research and the important responsibilities shared by community research partners.
• Eligibility & Recruitment: The importance of adhering to study inclusion/exclusion criteria and best practices identifying and recruiting research participants.
• Informed Consent: The key components of informed consent, the kinds of information included in the consent form, how to respond to participants’ questions about enrollment and withdrawal, and discussion of practical challenges and good practices.
• The Institutional Review Board: The people on the IRB, the process of submitting to the IRB, and the criteria that IRBs apply to the review of research.
• Collecting & Protecting Data: How to protect participant privacy and keep data safe and confidential during collection, transport, and storage.
• Handling Issues in the Field: What do to if you suspect a co-worker of falsifying data, run into a study participant outside of work, and get challenging questions from study participants.

Position: Research Personnel, Graduate Students, Pre & Post-Doctoral Trainees, Faculty

Topic: Clinical Trial Operations/Finances

Description:

Co-sponsored by the UI Cancer Center, the Clinical Research Investigator seminar series is intended to provide faculty and other investigators with information and skills needed to conduct clinical research at UIC at all stages of a study’s lifecycle.

* Please note that for Winter/Spring 2026, we are creating one registration page for the CRISS seminars from January to June so that registrants can easily keep track of upcoming seminars in their calendar.

1/23/2026 - Adverse Experience Assessment in Clinical Trials 
Dr. Natalie Reizine will discuss the role of the investigator in assessing adverse experiences occurring during clinical trials, and how investigator assessments are integral to identifying adverse requiring expedited safety reporting.

2/27/2026 - Considerations when running a multicenter IIT
Depending on the population necessary for a clinical trial sample size, it may be not be feasible to run the trial only at UIC. However, there are a number of considerations that need to be addressed when deciding whether and where to implement an investigator-initiated clinical trial at additional trial sites outside of UIC.

3/27/2026 - TBA

4/24/2026 - TBA

5/22/2026 - TBA

6/26/2026 - TBA

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Clinical Trial Operations/Finances

Description:

Exploring audit types and their roles in supporting quality, integrity, and compliance.

Speakers:

Erin Vidra, MS, CHRC, ACRP-CP
Director, Clinical & Human Subject Research Compliance
Office of Vice Chancellor for Research

&

Kristen Kitsch, BS, CCRP
Clinical Research Quality Assurance and Education Specialist
University of Illinois Cancer Center

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #4: Clinical trial operations

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Recruitment & Retention

Description:

The CCTS Master Class seminar series helps clinicians, research coordinators/specialists and other health research personnel develop a better understanding of conducting human subjects research at UIC. These immersive training workshops enable participants to implement best practices for human research subject protection, recruitment, study conduct, and data safety/security.

The Master Class on Recruitment and Retention will be a two-day virtual series designed to equip research teams with practical strategies, tools, and community-informed approaches to enhance the recruitment and retention of a wide range of research participants.

When: Wednesday, March 18th, from 1PM-3PM and Thursday, March 19th, from 1PM-3PM 

Register for Zoom link! 

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Position: Research Personnel

Topic: Study/Site/Lab Management

Description:

This presentation will cover a step by step guide to everything that must take place from the first point of contact to the moment the study team is ready to screen and enroll participants.

Speaker: 
Celina Garza, MPH
Study Activation Manager, Clinical Trials Office 
University of Illinois Cancer Center

RC+ Program:
Core Competency #5: Study and Site Management

Contact: Sudeshna De, Lawrie Zhang, ccts-training@uic.edu

Topic: Human Subject Protections

Description:

CIRTification Refresher: Continuing Education

This course is for users who have completed CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training and are required to take continuing education in human research protections per their institution's requirements. If you have not completed CIRTification: Community Involvement in Research Training, please complete that course first before taking this refresher.

In this course, we will review key concepts and cover some new ideas. We hope you gain new knowledge and skills for research.  This course will cover:

• Overview of Key Concepts: Review of the research process, the people involved and the tasks.
• Doing Trustworthy Research: Review the importance of following the IRB-approved research protocol, keeping data safe, and protecting privacy and confidentiality. You will also learn how to handle some tricky situations, including problems that may be unexpected.
• Overview of Informed Consent: Review key components of informed consent and good practices for responding to participants’ questions about enrollment, withdrawal and other issues.
• Research in Different Communities: Review considerations for doing research with people from different communities, including people who do not speak English, adults who cannot legally make decisions for themselves, and people who may have trouble saying “no” to an invitation to research.