“Thank you for this workshop, this was interesting and useful for my future projects!”
-Feedback from Workshop Attendee
The annual Preclinical Experimental Design and Reporting workshop at the 2018 BioCanRx Summit for Cancer Immunotherapy was a success! The workshop focused on teaching methods and practices outlined by the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Principles and Guidelines for Reporting Preclinical Research. These methods, including as randomization, blinding, and sample size calculation, have been demonstrated to reduce bias at the bench. The one day event was attended by an diverse group, ranging from senior investigators from academic institutions, researchers from the National Research Council, research associates and graduate students. The workshop provided attendees with a variety lectures, hands-on activities and a number of animated group discussions to keep everyone engaged.
Workshop attendees were asked to complete a pre- and post- survey to gauge the impact of the information presented, as well as to provide suggestions on how we can improve the workshop. The majority of participants reported that they met their goal of expanding knowledge on these methods to reduce bias at the bench. Importantly, participants also reported a high level of intent to apply some of these methods when they returned to their own labs.
Overall, feedback provided was extremely positive, and attendees’ suggestions will be considered as we begin to organize next year’s workshop. We have many exciting things planned in 2019 and we hope more senior investigators and HQP will be able to join us!
Sessions were led by BioCanRx Network Investigators Dr. Manoj Lalu, Dr. Dean Fergusson, Dr. Carolina Ilkow (pictured), as well as Dr. Carly Baron (McMaster University) and Joshua Montroy (Ottawa Hospital Research Institute).
Dr. Manoj Lalu is an Associate Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute CEP and Regenerative Medicine Programs, an Anesthesiologist at the Ottawa Hospital, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine
