From the Lab Bench to your Medicine Cabinet: Testing & Delivering New Treatment Solutions to Patients

Have your students ever wondered how drugs are tested before they come to market? Or how researchers choose their clinical research participants? Use this project based lesson to engage students in the process of late phase human drug trials and the decisions scientists make about how to ensure that trial groups are representative of the patient population they serve. Students will work in groups to investigate research protocols and intended patient audiences and come up with proposals to address issues of clinical trial diversification and the creation of meaningful treatment data. Creating clinical research study groups that accurately reflect our general population and the specific needs of patient subgroups is becoming more and more critical in scientific research. This lesson is designed to integrate into units of study on biotechnology or even science and engineering processes and connects students to the people and practices behind scientific research at well known industry leaders such as Genentech.