Matchmakers for Clinical Trials: Corengi Launches Free “eHarmony” Search App For Diabetes Research

It’s time to admit my deepest, darkest secret:  I frequently visit an online dating service. I search the site and view the long list of prospects late at night when my wife and family are sleeping.

CLICK  the Corengi logo to access the diabetes clinical trial matchmaking application

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find my perfect match, and what do I really know about my government-sponsored online dating service? In the morning, after a night of searching, I wake up tired and unsatisfied. However, when it comes to finding a match, I am totally committed to the search.

OK. Relax. And don’t call my wife. I’m talking about diabetes human trials and the lack of a user-friendly search application to make this less cumbersome for individuals who wish to find a match. Thankfully, this may all change soon thanks to the efforts of Ryan Luce and his company, Corengi, which provides a Clinical Options Research Engine to match open trials — for all types of chronic diseases — with the patients willing to participate in the search for a cure.

“That’s interesting that you used that term because we also see the need for an ‘eharmony’ search application,” Ryan Luce, the president and founder of Corengi, said during a recent telephone call. “Our goal is to simplify and improve the search process and to build a large database of qualified participants.” Ryan said the new online effort is a demonstration project focused on Type 2 diabetes with some financial support coming from an NIH grant and other investment capital.

Ryan said Corengi is committed to building a comprehensive, free, and open interactive platform that will allow stakeholders within the clinical trials community (investigators, site personnel, sponsors, and disease advocates) to engage with potential enrollees and educate them about specific clinical trials.

Ryan Luce is president and founder of Corengi, a Washington-based digital firm

At this point, the Corengi App connects persons with Type 2 diabetes with open clinical trials — and it is quicker and easier to use than searching the government’s Clinicaltrials.org site. Ryan told me the interactive database has more than 400 Type 2 trials today and is growing daily. Offering a Type 1 diabetes search application, the one that I care about,  will take a little longer to develop because there are more complex data variables to account for than in Type 2 trials ( i.e.  does the patient wear an insulin pump, do they wear a CGM, when were they diagnosed, what is their A1c, etc.)

It is awesome to see that Corengi is close to launching a Type 1 clinical trials search engine. The need for this product is clear. If you make a diabetes online search or view my twitter page on any given day, you’ll see a lot of great trials are happening across the world. When you read these stories closer, however, you’ll also see a common theme: Researchers need more humans to participate in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes clinical trials.

Finally, Ryan says the good news for Type 1 diabetics is that Corengi is not the only business pursuing this solution. “There is an entire industry growing up around this online recruitment idea, and we intend to be a part of the solution,” Ryan said.

Ryan spent most of 2000-2009 working for healthcare technology company NexCura, which was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2005 and then sold to US Oncology at the end of 2009. NexCura has educational tools that are embedded on a variety of websites, including several of the most prominent advocacy groups. As Director of Product Development, he developed completely new product lines in clinical trial recruitment, market research, and physician messaging. Ryan earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Duke University in 1994 and his Ph.D. in Bio-Organic Chemistry from the University of Washington in 1999.

Ryan sounds like he’s got the technical and business savvy to make this application a success. As a clinical trial participant, I wish him continued success, and when he gets the Type 1 App ready, I’ll partner with him to post it here on WeRtheCure.com for everyone to check out. Thanks Ryan for using technology to produce better solutions and, hopefully, a cure for persons living with diabetes. Together, We R the Cure.

2013 Blogging Year In Review: Thanks For Visiting We R The Cure

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Clinical Studies Are Recruiting for Participants; We R the Cure — Is It Your Time?

A clinical study involves research using human volunteers (also called participants) that is intended to add to medical knowledge.

Before leaving UVa and giving back the AP, I pose with a few of the team members who watched over me and conducted the outpatient trial. L to R: my nurse, Crystal Leathers, computer engineer Benton Mize, and Stacey Anderson, MD.

There are two main types of clinical studies: clinical trials and observational studies. ClinicalTrials.gov includes both interventional and observational studies.

Searching for a Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Trial? Check out the current list of trials in the United States.  Searching for a Type 2 diabetes clinical trial?  Click this link.

Why Do We Need Type 1 Research? Meet Molly: She Is A Diabetes Advocate Who Almost Became A Diabetes Statistic

I want you to meet Molly. She’s a CDE and clinical nurse trial coordinator at the Center for Diabetes Technology at the University of Virginia School Of Medicine. She’s a type 1 herself who works with the famous Dr. Boris Kovatchev running cutting-edge Artificial Pancreas trials.

Molly McElwee Malloy

Earlier this year, before you ” met ” Molly — she almost became a statistic. Molly almost died in the early morning hours from a “SH event,” a Severe Hypoglycemic seizure that required EMS intervention and help from a fast-acting spouse. Instead of me trying to retell the story, here’s a link to Molly finally telling her story in her own words in DiabetesMine this August. If you or someone you know lives with Type 1 diabetes, you must read this. Of course, you’ve probably had this happen. My wife has called EMS for me but I have avoided a seizure or trip to the ER.

Here’s a life-and-death detail of Type 1 diabetes:  1 in 20 people, an estimated 2-4 percent and 6 percent in patients younger than 40 years old, will die from severe hypoglycemia.  That’s having a low blood sugar that produces seizures, coma and death. Of the estimated 3 million people in the U.S. with type 1 diabetes, that’s approximately 150,000 people. That’s like wiping out Chattanooga, Tenn. or Rockford, Ill. — wiping them right off the map.

The prevention of a ” hypo event” is a deadly serious issue for T1Ds who strive for tight blood glucose control. That’s the catch-22: The better your control is and the lower your A1cs number is, the better chance you have of avoiding the serious, medical consequences of diabetes ( amputation, heart attack, stokes, and blindness to name a few).

The better your control, however, the higher the likelihood of low-blood sugar events (hypoglycemia).  Wearing Insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) all serve as valuable tools for T1Ds in the quest for tight control. However, reading Molly’s near-fatal “bedtime story” makes it clear to me: even the best informed and compliant PWDs ( persons with diabetes) will experience severe lows and their insulin pumps will continue to infuse insulin until the patient or an attending EMS tech turns it off manually.

That’s where the Artificial Pancreas and its Safety Supervision System can provide real technology solutions. And that’s why the AP must be available and soon.

Molly’s Severe Hypoglycemia Event.

The figure ( reprinted with permission from Molly) shows the course of her near-death experience and how  the system would have intervened. Sixty minutes before the ” severe hypo” event the safety system would have alerted the patient and stopped insulin. This alert — think of it as your home’s monitoring system — can send a signal to the patient. And if the patient is sleeping or in what I call a ” diabetes fog — unaware of the pending crash.” it could send an alert to a caregiver or spouse via the system’s remote monitoring capability.

I first met Molly in the summer of 2010 when I enrolled in my first AP clinical trial at UVA. Molly, and her trials colleague Mary, are bright, engaging and positive people. Thanks to Molly and Mary, I’ve enjoyed every minute I’ve spent in the UVA trials — as an in-patient and out-patient. And even though Molly reminds me, gleefully, that her alma mater James Madison beat my alma mater, Virginia Tech, in a football game recently in Blacksburg — I can’t imagine going back to UVA in the future and not seeing her smiling face.

Molly gets ” the need” for more clinical trials and why the Artificial Pancreas is so critical to our long-term health. For all T1Ds who wake up at 2 or 3 AM to treat a low blood sugar and sit in the kitchen wondering what happens the next time our sugar drops below 40,  we know why the AP and better technology must be available in the United States. The safety shutoff is available to insulin pump and CGM wearers NOW — in Great Britain. It’s time for the United States to stop leading from behind and move to the front on diabetes technology and research.

Our lives — and Molly’s life — hang in the balance.

Do You Know Difference Between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes? Watch This Video And Learn