Shayne Ladak, MD, CMD - Principal Investigator Spotlight

Transcript

I’m Dr. Shayne, Ladak. I am a principal investigator at IMA Clinical Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

How Did You Get Into Clinical Research?

So I’ve had a very, long interest in clinical research ended up working for two clinical trial sites in Saint Louis, Missouri. I was their medical director and their principal investigator on multiple studies, multiple indications, including Alzheimer’s disease, all other types of dementia, neurodegenerative disorders. Outside of that, did a lot of work in pain and in neuropathic pain specifically, which is an area of interest for me, and then also did work in diabetes, complications of diabetes, and then obesity. I was really missing clinical research and IMA reached out and it’s been the best thing I’ve done.

Hope Within Research

Clinical research gives me hope because we can do things to help make a difference; to help make change, to allow not only people currently suffering from those diseases to have benefits from our pharmacological research, our device research, but it also gives us hope for the future generations that they will not have to face some of the trials and tribulations that people suffer right now. I think it opens up many treatment options for patients that don’t often have options available to them. I mean, we are tied in with, you know, support services, agencies in the community. If we do a dementia study, that will be tied in with the Alzheimer’s Association in the area.

Communities Benefiting From Research

I actually have had some exciting work on metabolic studies and I have actually had firsthand experience working on a medication that is a pragmatic clinical trial. So it’s an investigational product that has been used for a previous indication and has been approved by the FDA. And then its use has now been studied for another indication, such as obesity and I see a lot of positive outcomes in that study. A lot of subjects benefited from it. And it really not only helped the drug not only help them, but it also helped spearhead a lifestyle change for them. So a lot more awareness of dietary changes and exercise and mindfulness. And so I was able, through our clinical trial, to get an overall picture of how clinical research really benefits, not only the community, but each individual subject.

Why IMA Clinical Research?

When I moved to Albuquerque I’d actually told my husband that I really missed clinical research. I hadn’t done it in about two years and had taken a step back from it just because of my clinical commitments. And so when we moved to Albuquerque, I really was yearning to get back into clinical research work and I happened to hear from a recruiter for IMA that was looking for people that had accomplished work in, in clinical research previously and wanted to join our robust team in Albuquerque. And so I met with various people from IMA who were amazing and just really had done such great work to move the clinical research benchmark further. And it just made me really excited. And I felt this is the right company, the right team, the right group of people to really work with. And so, I knew it was the right fit for me.