0  

New Cornell certificate centers individual perspective on metabolic health

a collection of food on a table with meat, bean, oil, and vegetables.

Nutrition tips frequently trend online, but some recommendations from social media nutritionists can do more harm than good. Understanding health through research-based approaches helps consumers fight the influence of fads.

Sander Kersten, director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Schleifer Family Professor in Cornell Human Ecology’s Division of Nutritional Sciences, collaborated with eCornell to design the Nutrition for Metabolic Health certificate program, which guides dietitians, health educators and individuals interested in personal wellness toward lifestyle changes that will outlast today’s trends.

“This online nutrition certificate program was designed to provide level, researched information about metabolic health,” Kersten said. “Of course, this could be directly applicable to dietitians and other professionals, but the courses are accessible and informative to everyone.”

The certificate includes three courses: Foundations of Metabolic Health, Assessing the Effects of Obesity and Optimizing Metabolic Health Through Nutrition. Kersten guides participants through an exploration of what defines metabolic health and elaborates on how diet can be leveraged to improve metabolic health. Learners will assess genetic and environmental effects on obesity and identify how diet can improve overall health, even when weight loss is not the main goal.

“Understanding metabolism is essential, but it is important to keep in mind that there are other factors that can make weight management more difficult. People should be aware of the numerous environmental factors that make it more challenging to implement the necessary changes in diet and lifestyle,” Kersten said.

The program offers a research-based examination of the relationship between diet choices, exercise and sustainable health management strategies. Participants learn to evaluate scientific evidence about metabolic processes while developing practical approaches to lifestyle modification.

“Each course emphasizes nutrition principles that can be applied to personal wellness goals or used to support others in their health journeys,” Kersten said. “The program delivers a science-based approach that creates a foundation for lasting metabolic health beyond quick fixes.”

Navigate the nature-nurture balance in metabolic health — learn more in the Nutrition for Metabolic Health certificate program.

  0  

More than recovery: Examining life after depression

Host Chris Wofford (L) and Jonathan Rottenberg, professor of psychology, in the Cornell Keynotes studio.

Experiences with depression have hit record highs, with nearly 30% of U.S. adults reporting diagnoses. In the workplace, the figures present greater cause for alarm — around three in four employees have grappled with matters that impact their mental health and stigma that inhibits their access to care. The costs of this double-edged challenge are significant for workers and organizations; the latter lose billions of dollars related to mental health issues annually.

Jonathan Rottenberg believes there is a rarely discussed and remarkable silver living: A meaningful number of individuals who have experienced depression not only go on to experience well-being but flourish in their lives. Rottenberg, a professor of psychology and director of the Better Outcomes Laboratory at Cornell, shared his research and reasons for optimism in a recent Cornell Keynote.

What is depression — how do experts define it?

“Depression is a mood disorder, and it’s a profound state involving symptoms like feeling sad, losing interest or pleasure in things, and then a number of other associated symptoms. These symptoms come together, and unfortunately, depression tends to be disabling and also is accompanied by a lot of distress of people who feel quite bad, and in severe cases, people might actually become suicidal.”

What is the typical prognosis for depression? Do most people experience recovery or recurrence?

“Typically, depression is recurrent, meaning if you had one episode, you’re likely to have another. In addition to that, it’s likely that you’ll have some degree of continuing symptoms, so even during better periods, there’s still some burden of depression with you.

“For about half of people who have depression, it is recurrent, but for the other half it is not. People who have only one single lifetime episode of depression — that’s very common, and we don’t actually know so much about that very large group of people.”

Why is symptom reduction the focus of most depression research?

“The field of clinical research and treatment research is 100% geared toward symptom reduction as the main outcome, but our research suggests that depressed people have a wide variety of aspirations for their life, and reduction in symptoms is just one piece.”

How are broader recovery goals addressed in mental health treatment?

“Practitioners will have discussed with their clients these other themes because, in part, these are things that the clients will themselves bring up. As part of the nature of depression, people feel desperately cut off from their past. They have trouble even imagining times when [they weren’t] depressed, and so they desperately want this reconnection with [their former selves]. That said, researchers really haven’t studied this nearly as much in clinical practice and in real people. This is very important, but our researchers have not caught up to the reality of what the people on the ground really care about.”

What do we know about good outcomes, both historically and in present-day state-of-the-art research?

“I think it scared a lot of people off in the sense that we had all this research that suggested rather strongly that ‘not so good’ outcomes were the norm. Typically, if one had an episode of depression, one could expect to experience a recurrence and continuing symptoms, even during better times. There would often be some ongoing burden of symptoms. I think that’s partly why people maybe didn’t have the imagination to wonder whether, in addition to these not-so-good outcomes, there might also be people who not only recovered but actually flourished.

“We’ve always known that some people recover in the sense that they no longer have symptoms, which is great, but we didn’t imagine that people might be flourishing — doing really well in relationships, jobs, spiritually or emotionally. And if you don’t imagine that something is very likely, you might not research it, and that’s how it was until about a decade ago. There was virtually no research on good outcomes other than recovery, which is, of course, important. Recovery — meaning the symptoms are gone — is one kind of good outcome, and we know that many people fully recover from depression.”

What are the challenges individuals face when considering disclosing a mental health condition?

“There are some forums, in particular, where disclosure is extremely difficult. One would be in workplace settings. Many people have all kinds of negative associations and fear about mental health problems and . . . really fully empathizing with what this person is going through because that is part of the reality and we cannot ‘happy talk’ our way out of that. We still live in a society where there’s a lot of judgment. The younger generation is making progress, but there are still these domains where we haven’t made as much progress as you would think, and employment is a big one.”

Has the research at Cornell’s Better Outcomes Laboratory disrupt historical assumptions about depression recovery?

“Our research aims to challenge the bleak outlook that’s often associated with depression. We look at whether people can not only recover in the sense of losing symptoms but also go on to thrive emotionally, socially and professionally.

“So many of these outcomes you could say would be tricky to measure . . . we might have different ideas about who’s doing well. I wanted to start with a good outcome that most people think is important: happiness. We started with psychological well-being, and that had the dual good quality of a) being important to a lot of people who experience mental health problems, and b) being readily measurable.”

What did your research reveal about the likelihood of achieving high levels of well-being after a diagnosis of depression?

“The conventional wisdom would say that this is going to be pretty rare, right? These people had serious diagnosed depression . . . [we expected] 1% who are really flourishing and reporting these very high levels of well-being. What we found was that depression cut the chances of reporting high levels of well-being about in half, and about 10% of depressed people went on to report these very high levels of well-being. This really challenges the conventional wisdom that this kind of good outcome is rare. These good outcomes are real, and this is not an insignificant group of people.”

What are the next steps for your research, and what direction do you see yourself going?

“The next step is to understand what explains these good outcomes and how people transition from depression to states of well-being. My strong hypothesis is that there won’t be one single road to well-being; rather, there might be various paths involving cognitive, behavioral, biological and social factors that explain why some people experience good outcomes.”

What do you think can be done to destigmatize conversations around depression?

“Being matter of fact and really normalizing it as part of the human experience, realizing that depression is probably going to be some part of your identity — not your whole identity but part of your identity — and creating forums like this for people to engage are really important. I think that there’s going to be big changes, particularly in younger people [who] are way more comfortable talking about mental health problems. I think there are going to be some sea changes to finally get our society to less stigma.”

 

In his research, Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D., explores long-term outcomes and well-being after depression and other mental health issues. Rottenberg served as the director of clinical training and director of the Mood and Emotion Lab at the University of South Florida. He is the author of “The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic” and “Depression: What Everyone Needs to Know.” Learn more by watching Ever After, Rottenberg’s video series about life after depression.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Experience the full Life After Depression Keynote video or podcast.

If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health challenges or considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, texting “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741, or visiting 988lifeline.org.

  0  

Certificate program brings meditation, mindfulness benefits to leadership

Person in light-colored clothing meditates

Mindful and inclusive leaders are highly sought after in today’s increasingly global and diverse workplace. Organizations need leaders who can foster environments where individuals with varying backgrounds feel valued and understood.

Organizations tend to concentrate on the bureaucratic elements while the foundation of an inclusive setting lies in individuals’ empathy, compassion and wisdom. Research studies suggest that through greater emotion regulation, meditation can enhance interpersonal awareness and the capacity to connect with people from different walks of life.

Connie Yuan, author of the Mindful Inclusion program from eCornell and a professor of communication at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has combined her mindfulness and organizational behavior expertise to transform how meditation is perceived and applied in leadership. 

The Mindful Inclusion program begins by introducing Tibetan Buddhist techniques for meditation success and later highlights the importance of formal structures and informal networks to bridge practical skills with theoretical understandings in organizations. The need for adaptive leadership is emphasized as no one-size-fits-all method exists.

Courses include:

  • Using Mindful Meditation to Strengthen Relationships
  • Organizational Structures and Networking
  • Leading Adaptively
  • Navigating Diversity and Cultural Differences
  • Managing Organizational Knowledge and Innovation

Yuan emphasizes that welcoming multiculturalism instead of commonality among diverse individuals is critical as fostering innovation through varied perspectives leads to effective management and growth. 

“The program helps people embrace diversity not as something we have to live with because [workplaces are now more diverse]. It treats diversity as a resource opportunity for growth,” said Yuan.

The program also offers an alternative management approach for people exposed to collaboration and entrepreneurship at all levels — from CEOs to individual contributors. By improving relationships with people who are different from themselves, participants develop greater compassion to navigate intercultural connections effectively.

Enroll in the Mindful Inclusion certificate program to make the most of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

  0  

Certificate program bolsters NYS public health workforce

Gen Meredith, center, associate director of the Cornell Public Health Program, works with colleagues Zoe Wakoff, right, and Katie Lesser, left, in Schurman Hall.
Gen Meredith, center, associate director of the Cornell Public Health Program, works with colleagues Zoe Wakoff, right, and Katie Lesser, left, in Schurman Hall.

As a registered nurse and director of patient services for the Chautauqua County Health Department in western New York, Wendy Douglas conducted case investigations and monitoring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The experience laid bare the disparities public health departments are designed to address but not all workers are equipped to encounter.

“Very few of our health department’s employees have any public health background when they start working here, and it sometimes shows,” Douglas said. “For example, there can be a lack of understanding of health equity.”

The issue is nationwide in scale. On-the-job experience is the only source of public health training for most professionals in governmental agencies. Only 14% of those workers have received formal higher education in the field. To close the skills gap that is, in part, responsible for the profession’s decadeslong workforce decline, a team of Cornell faculty members and researchers – led by Gen Meredith, an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Public and Ecosystem Health – partnered with eCornell to launch the university’s Public Health Essentials online certificate program.

Read more on the Chronicle.

  0  

Cornell public health certificate closes 8 primary skill gaps for students

Recent global events have underscored a pressing truth: our ever-expanding interactions with the natural world can lead to unforeseen health challenges. At the juncture of urban development, climate change and health concerns, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic raised the necessity to strengthen our public health infrastructure.

Through its new Public Health Essentials online certificate program, Cornell seeks to help leaders proactively address today’s global health challenges.

“COVID-19 came and showed us that our public health workforce was underprepared and that our public health systems were not equipped to detect and respond to an emerging pandemic,” said Gen Meredith, associate professor of public and ecosystem health and associate director of the Cornell Master of Public Health (MPH) Program.

Meredith, co-author of the university’s Public Health Essentials certificate program with Alexander Travis, professor and MPH program director, developed the coursework to address real-world applications for health professionals, community health advocates, volunteers and other emerging leaders in public health. The program begins with the basic foundations of public health, including the latest terminology, and moves into topics such as driving action with data and supporting behaviors that prevent disease. Courses include:

  • Public Health Foundations
  • Assessing and Implementing Public Health
  • Using Public Health Data for Action
  • Supporting Public Health Behaviors
  • Public Health Preparedness

Participants complete the facilitator-guided online program with a cohort of fellow professionals within four months. Research from Meredith, Travis and coauthors from the MPH program shows significant improvement among learners across eight critical skill areas: systems and strategic thinking; community engagement; cross-sectoral partnership; policy engagement; diversity, equity and inclusion; data-informed decision making, effective communication and programmatic expertise.

“The way that globalization is happening around the world and the way that humans are using the natural environment around us is creating real risk for the emergence of new diseases, and this comes at a time when humans are already vulnerable because of chronic diseases and other environmental conditions we are facing on a day-to-day basis,” said Meredith.

The Public Health Essentials program intends to drive actions that contribute to disease prevention and global community well-being. In earning the certificate, leaders can gain new knowledge and skills to navigate the complexities of worldwide health challenges, strengthen healthcare systems and enhance preparedness.

Enroll in Cornell’s Public Health Essentials certificate program to explore the global challenges alongside best practices from experts.

  0  

Shape the Future of Senior Living Management

Seniors flipping through memories in a photo album

Driven by longer lifespans and the aging Baby Boomer generation, the number of older adults in the United States is expected to exceed 80 million by 2040, accelerating the demand for senior living solutions. Professionals in the sector are adapting to provide affordable housing and quality care as demographics shift.

Heather Kolakowski, interim executive director for the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures, and seasoned industry specialists discussed potential solutions for creating sustainable and inclusive senior living environments in a recent Keynote webcast, “Affordable Senior Living: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead.”

Subsidized or Affordable: What’s the Difference?

Rent-to-income ratios are a key indicator of housing affordability. Financial experts frequently advise families to spend below 30 percent of their income on rent, and those who spend more are deemed cost-burdened.

“We are currently in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, and you probably wouldn’t know that from looking at the housing prices these days,” said Severine Petras, CEO and co-founder of Priority Life Care. “Nearly one in three households devotes more than 30 percent of their income to their mortgages.”

Subsidized and affordable housing are two distinct yet related concepts. Subsidized housing, often supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development through programs like Section 8, ensures individuals do not pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing. Affordable housing refers to units that are offered below market rates without government support.

Rising Costs on All Fronts

With rent prices increasing faster than income growth, seniors will have difficulty finding affordable housing options in the future. Jay Woolford, senior vice president at CIRC, questions how providers will meet the growing needs: “As rents go up and the cost of housing continues to go up, how do we fill the gap for people? How do we begin to look at ways to manage housing costs and be able to provide them opportunities for nutrition, for transportation, for healthcare, for access to entertainment?”

Financing senior living facilities is another hindrance, with tax credit investors, opportunity zone funds, and volume cap bonds playing crucial roles. Woolford has explored alternative financing with his own Tukwila Village project, a mixed-used senior housing development project in Washington state.

“We were getting tax credit investors to put in the bulk of the equity for the project. We actually used opportunity zone funds as the final equity piece of that,” said Woolford. “But the struggle now is the availability of volume cap bonds. The demand is outstripping the capacity.”

Senior living management professionals also face rising labor costs and a reliance on government subsidies. With labor being the most significant expense for assisted living facilities, providers must find ways to balance the need for qualified staff with the rising costs of care.

“The bigger problem is operationally making sure that you’re able to meet the extreme demands on an expense side,” said Petras. “When you’re talking about the revenue, we’re talking about relying on a government subsidy.”

Creative Strategies for a Brighter Future

The community aspect of senior living alleviates the heftier burden of healthcare service costs seniors and their families would otherwise face with private care. Maintaining this important benefit for aging adults requires innovative solutions.

Tukwila Village demonstrates how cities can provide land to facilitate the development of affordable housing communities. “The property was actually owned by the city of Tukwila. They had aggregated a little under six acres. And we worked with the city to be able to put this together in order to do affordable senior housing on the property in conjunction with a number of other partners,” said Woolford.

Modular housing, which involves the assembly of prefabricated housing units, can offer a faster and more cost-effective approach to building senior living facilities.

“Manufactured housing has a dirty reputation, especially after a hurricane. But the reality is that new manufactured homes are actually built better today,” said Mitch Brown, principal consultant for Senior Housing Consulting. “The new regulations for building those communities are more rigorous in terms of tie downs and everything that has to happen.”

Cornell’s Senior Living Management certificate program introduces professionals to best practices for service excellence at senior living facilities. Learn more and enroll today.

Watch the full “Affordable Senior Living: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead” Keynote on the eCornell website.

  0  

What is Your Style of Decision-Making? Strategize for Influence.

Imagine unlocking the secret to success in both business and day-to-day life. It’s all rooted in one critical talent: strategic decision-making – the essence of exceptional leadership, the engine driving meaningful change, and the spark igniting innovation.

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, adjunct professor in Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, is a pioneer in shaping our understanding of this crucial skill. She is an accomplished author, educator, the creator of the AREA Method – a game-changing problem-solving approach – and the author of the Complex Decision-Making Cornell certificate program.

Her insights have reshaped how leaders steer their decision-making strategies and offer valuable lessons for navigating the complexity of the corporate world and your career.

Einhorn shared some key decision-making guidelines in a recent Keynotes webcast hosted by eCornell:

Understanding Strategic Choices

Einhorn believes that our problem-solving styles are behaviors with which we feel most adept and comfortable. She asserts, “we all have a comfort, a dominant problem solver profile. And we can all become more dynamic problem solvers.” This perspective champions the inherent adaptability within each of us to navigate different problem-solving styles.

The Adaptability of Problem-Solving Styles

Contrary to popular belief, problem-solving styles aren’t prescriptive. Instead, they offer space for adaptability and growth. Acknowledging our problem-solving styles provides a valuable opportunity for self-awareness and interpersonal development.

Einhorn defines five distinct styles of decision making that offer unique perspectives into the world of strategic problem solving:

The Adventurer: Einhorn describes the adventurer as “a very decisive decision maker. She knows what she wants. The future is endlessly more interesting than the present.”

The Detective: With a strong need for concrete evidence, the detective is “a slower decision maker because she wants to find data.”

The Listener: This style of decision maker is “relational, collaborative, trusting,” Eihorn said. “She emphasizes the importance of gathering input, and she likes to gather the wisdom and opinions of others.”

The Thinker: Someone who “values understanding the why and thinking about the different options.” This style represents a “thoughtful, careful decision maker.”

The Visionary: “A big, creative, out-of-the-box thinker.” Einhorn warns, however, that “this kind of decision maker could have a planning fallacy.” Visionaries can dream big and are often the source of innovative ideas, but they must stay grounded to avoid unrealistic expectations.

Decision-making styles are dynamic, changeable over time, and influenced by various factors such as age, experiences, and environments. For example, your style at work might differ from your style at home. Einhorn explains that you have the freedom to choose your problem-solving style based on the situation: “You could decide that you want to plan a meal as a visionary. You want to take a vacation as an adventurer. You want to buy insurance as a detective. And each of these opportunities are available to you once you understand the five different profiles.”

No “Perfect” Combination

Harnessing the power of strategic decision makers isn’t about achieving a “perfect” combination of problem-solving styles. The real value lies in understanding and leveraging diverse profiles to become more effective leaders.

Awareness of these profiles can offer insights into the kind of information each leader needs and highlight any cognitive biases that might obstruct effective problem solving. “You can learn what this means that you’re good at and the places where each of us might have mental mistakes that are most relevant to getting in our way. And then how we can make better choices together,” Einhorn said.

With this knowledge, we can fill gaps in perspective, ensure a more comprehensive understanding of situations, and contribute more effectively to collective problem-solving processes to foster strategic leadership and decision making.

In mastering the craft of strategic leadership, we pave our own route toward personal and professional achievement. Adopt an introspective approach and learn to leverage your unique problem-solving styles in Cornell’s Complex Decision-Making certificate program. You’ll gain a dynamic skill set to boost your confidence, empower your choices, and drive significant change in all aspects of your life.

Watch Einhorn’s Making Difficult Decisions Keynote webcast on the eCornell website.

  0  

Bringing New Science to Market

Medical supplies and drugs, including a syringe, surgical mask, and pills

Medical innovation is reaching new heights every year. What scientific breakthroughs can we expect on the market in the coming decade? What challenges will we face in adopting them?

Professor Sean Nicholson, director of the Cornell Sloan Program in Health Administration, welcomed Wyatt Gotbetter, SVP and worldwide head of Parexel Access Consulting, and Dr. Gregory B. Franz, MD, MPH, MHA, hematologist and medical oncologist at the Kirkland Cancer Center, to explore answers to these questions in the recent Keynote webcast “Bringing New Science to Market: Innovation, Adoption, and Health Policy Challenges.”

Biotech and pharmaceutical firms spend about $80 billion each year on research and development in order to try to bring new therapies to the market. What is in the pipeline that might have a big positive effect on the health of the population in the future?

Gotbetter: “If we think just about the past five years, and of course that includes the pandemic, I think the rate of innovation and the number of launches has been remarkable. We can’t have this discussion without acknowledging the validation and the importance to all of us of the RNAi vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna. Moderna, on the heels of that success and being flush with sales of their COVID vaccine, is really advancing a number of therapeutic products as well as vaccines – really advancing their RNAi technology into the therapeutic space and oncology specifically.

In the same time, we’ve seen the approval of a couple of CAR-Ts truly advancing life-saving therapy in hematology and oncology. I think we’ll see gene therapies becoming safer and easier to manufacture, hopefully at lower costs. There’s just a pipeline of literally hundreds of programs where we’ll see gene therapy go from rare disease and disease that has very, very high morbidity perhaps into things managed more chronically with small molecule drugs – like heart failure.”

We have a couple of CAR-T therapies on the market that are Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved. Are there similar kinds of classes of compounds that have yet to be approved that you think might potentially have a similar health impact?

Franz: “Leveraging the immune system to identify and kill cancer cells – that’s really what’s going on here. This is T cells doing what T cells do against cancer cells. I know that’s a very simple explanation. It’s very difficult to develop these compounds and to do this safely, but I think that’s where the money and the future is.”

It takes a long time, and it’s very expensive for biotech and pharmaceutical firms to run clinical trials and, even preceding that, to identify compounds that are promising enough to start a clinical trial. The current estimate is about $2.6 billion in investment across a portfolio of compounds in order to statistically assure a company that they’re going to have one approved compound. Where do companies come up with that money, and in the current climate, is it difficult for companies to raise the funds they need in order to invest in those drugs?

Gotbetter: “That $2.6 billion figure also includes the cost of failure. Even if we think about a successful drug compound, if you boil down the numbers, hundreds and hundreds of drug candidates will be considered before you start your phase one and then roughly one in ten of those will make it through to approval. It’s fraught with risk. But even if you could streamline that process, you’re probably looking at hundreds of millions to a billion dollars.

The amount of money that’s poured into the biotech sector over the past few years has been remarkable. We’ve seen, though, a massive sea change in the past year. Biotech has been the engine of discovery and innovation for large pharmaceutical companies. The largest companies in the world that certainly have formidable R&D engines employing thousands of people still turn to biotech to find innovation, to find a compound that has been tested, that shows a proof of concept, and can move forward.

The headwinds of the past year or two – interest rates and some of the perceived threats of the Inflation Reduction Act, which could reduce pricing power of the industry – has really slowed down [venture capital] funding.

I think what that means is that probably the rate of innovation will slow down a little bit in the sense that there may be fewer programs being pursued simultaneously, so a company may really focus on the crown jewels instead of many at once. Then biotech may again have to be more reliant on Big Pharma once they’re in the middle of their development versus a period where they probably could see funding to go all the way through.”

What are the factors that make a drug widely adopted?

Franz: “In the medical oncology world, it’s really all about safety and efficacy. Is the drug difficult to give? Does the patient have a lot of adverse side effects? How do you manage those side effects? But most importantly, you’re looking at endpoints: PFS, or progression-free survival, and OS, or overall survival. Duration of response and response rate are biggies and, of course, the toxicity profile. All those together are important. The better the PFS and OS, the more successful the drug is going to be.”

Are biotech and pharmaceutical firms doing anything to try to run their trials differently – to be less expensive, to be shorter, to have higher probability of approval?

Gotbetter: “The FDA provides a rubric that says for very life-threatening diseases, it will work with the industry sponsor to find a way to streamline the therapy. We have names for that in the U.S like breakthrough therapies and accelerated pathways, where you get more support and guidance from the regulatory agency, but you’re also partnering with them along the way to find a way to expedite the study.

There’s a lot of companies that are using all sorts of AI, computational methods and synthetic biology to [speed up the trial process].”

Historically, clinical trials have been dominated by white men. Are biotech and pharmaceutical firms trying to diversify those trials? What are the implications potentially of a more representative group of patients in the testing phase?

Gotbetter: “There are mandates coming from the FDA and other governments, and I think very sincere efforts from the pharma industry and from clinical research organizations who enroll and operationalize the studies to really bring diversity into studies. There’s an awareness in society for many reasons, for many historical wrongs, we need to bring more diversity into everything we do. It’s to really ensure that when we study a drug, we’ll be able to show efficacy in different populations because we’re not all the same. Historically, if you were to develop a drug for people of European descent, across the globe in Asian markets, they would want to know that there was a study being done in populations for which the results were meaningful for them. As we take that to other populations, to different age groups, different genders, it’s the right thing to do.”

 

This post has been edited for length and clarity.

Want to learn more about the future of biopharma? Register for Cornell’s Biotech and Pharmaceutical Management Immersion Program and watch the full Keynote “Bringing New Science to Market” webcast online.

  0  

Cornell debuts biotech, pharma management program

Networking at Cornell Tech

As biotechnology and pharmaceutical professionals continue efforts to make advances in medicinal drug formulation, safety and efficacy, experts in the field are implementing innovations to address regulatory hurdles, research costs and global health challenges.

The new Biotech and Pharmaceutical Management Program offered through the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy is designed to give leaders the opportunity to explore industry trends and cutting edge research with a cohort of peers, executives and renowned faculty from the university.

Read the full story on the Cornell Chronicle.

  0  

Cornell Brooks EMHA ranked in top 10 health care management grad programs

The Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy Executive Master of Health Administration (EMHA) is one of the top 10 executive health care management graduate programs in the nation, according to rankings published by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

Of 25 programs, the Cornell Brooks EMHA ranked No. 9 based on alumni survey data from the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). The commission calculated each institution’s Net Promoter Score, which measures the likelihood that graduates would positively recommend a program. CAHME published the average scores for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years and Cornell’s EMHA received a score demonstrating high satisfaction – 81 out of 100.

Read the full story on the Cornell Chronicle website.