Presentation Abstract

Unique Challenges and Innovative Opportunities for Exercise Rehabilitation Clinical Trials among Wheelchair Users

This session will highlight unique challenges and innovative opportunities for exercise rehabilitation trials among wheelchair users. Discussion topics will include clinical trial design considerations, control groups, and how to deal with and leverage inter-individual response heterogeneity. In addition to addressing challenges, a major focus will be on future opportunities to advance research in ways expected to yield high impact findings that ultimately will benefit the health and performance of individuals using wheelchairs.

About Dr. Bamman

Marcas Bamman has been fostering and leading clinical and translational research focused on exercise medicine/rehabilitation and biology since the 1990s, and has maintained continuous federal research support (NIH, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)) as PI for 20+ years. He is Director of the NIH National Rehabilitation Research Resource to Enhance Clinical Trials (REACT, P2CHD086851); Director of the Coordinating Center for the NIH National Medical Rehabilitation Research Resource Network (MR3 Network); PI of a National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Clinical Center for the NIH Common Fund Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) initiative (U01AR071133); and founding Director of the 77-site National Exercise Clinical Trials Network (NExTNet)—all of which are designed to foster and increase the scientific rigor and impact of clinical trials.

Dr. Bamman has directed several exercise rehabilitation clinical trials including dose-response trials (e.g., NCT02442479), and he is currently the overall PI or site PI of four multisite randomized exercise trials focused on: (1) molecular transducers of exercise-induced health benefits (NIH U01AR071133); (2) total joint arthroplasty rehabilitation (NIH R01HD084124, NCT02628795); (3) Parkinson’s disease rehabilitation to promote neuroplasticity (foundation funding); and (4) epigenetic determinants of exercise responsiveness (DoD Office of Naval Research N000141613159, NCT03380923). All of these human studies are biologically driven with the goal of better understanding mechanisms underpinning skeletal muscle atrophy and neuromuscular dysfunction, as well as exercise-induced health benefits in disease prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. He is also PI of a Gamma Testing Site for the Million Veteran Program, with a focus on genome-wide and phenome-wide association studies (GWAS-PheWAS) to better understand genetic and phenotypic determinants of osteoarthritis and its progression to end-stage (i.e., total joint arthroplasty). Finally, Dr. Bamman serves as Associate Editor of two peer-reviewed journals and has served on more than 80 federal grant review panels and site visit teams.

Dr. Bamman did not disclose any conflicts of interest for this workshop.