Clinical Research Associate

Job Purpose

Undertake research training as needed leading to MD. Recruit patients to study and conduct all clinical reviews as required by study protocol. A lay summary of the methods of the study is below.

We propose to enrol 55 AATD patients with evidence of COPD, who are known to the UK AATD registry. They will measure their urinary markers of elastin degradation at home, together with completing symptom diaries, on at least 4 occasions every time they have an exacerbation. They will also attend our centre for review at the start (day 1) and end (day 56) of each episode to have blood taken, clinical review and symptom diary assessment. Assuming current rates of AECOPD this should mean that we gather data on at least 88 AECOPD episodes over an 18 month period. These results will be assessed to describe AATD exacerbations in terms of elastin degradation, and will then be compared to a historical cohort of COPD patients, whose data was collected similarly during AECOPD, and to age matched healthy subjects. The study will therefore find out whether our hypothesis about AECOPD in AATD is true, and will further test the feasibility of home urine monitoring in AATD/COPD and the likely utility of this in personalising therapy for exacerbations.

Person Specification

Qualified, registered practitioner with Specialist Registrar training post