Welcome to the World Kidney Academy Fellowship in Clinical Research

Clinical Research encompasses various observational and experimental human studies, inclusive of behavioral interventions, drugs, biologics and device trials, that determines their safety, dosing, toxicity, efficacy and clinical effectiveness prior to clinical use.

These studies follow diligently performed phases of in-silico, cell culture and animal-based studies over a prolonged pre-clinical period. In order to generate beneficial patient-oriented outcomes and to impact population health, clinicians need to be able to understand/ perform and apply valid clinical research evidence to patient care.

The ethical aspects of these studies with emphasis on autonomy, beneficence and justice are of an equally paramount importance as protection and safety of human subject volunteers is the prime function of both institutional review boards and the clinical research team.

A major flaw in some of these studies is related to internal validity with poorly designed methodology, bias, inadequate sample size and confounding. Furthermore, some of these studies employ inappropriate statistics and may also lack external validity thus precluding generalizability.