The Australian Children's Clinical Trials Centre

On this page:

• Contact for enquiries
• What is The ACCT Centre?
  • Our vision
  • Our mission statement
  • Our activities
  • Our resources
• Who is involved?
  • Disease indications of trials over the last 5 years

Contact for enquiries

Clinical Trials Coordinator

• E:
  T: +61 2 9845 2358

What is The ACCT Centre?

The Australian Children's Clinical Trials Centre ("The ACCT Centre") is a paediatric clinical trials centre and exists for all clinical investigators and industry partners wishing to conduct paediatric clinical trials at The Children's Hospital at Westmead. Situated in the Kerry Packer Research Building, adjacent to The Children's Hospital at Westmead, it is housed within the Kids Research Institute.

Our vision

Our vision is to be a leading global centre for paediatric clinical trials; to promote scientific discovery; to educate and train future clinical investigators; and to improve patient care and outcomes.

Our mission statement

Our mission is to improve the health of children and adolescents by the development, evaluation and implementation of effective therapies for children and adolescents.

Our activities

Our activities enable clinical investigators and industry partners to pursue their paediatric research interests by offering advice, support, training and access to required resources including:

• Protocol development
• Feasibility assessment
• Budget development
• Grant writing/Funding sources
• Ethics and governance submissions
• Biostatistical support
• GCP training
• Access to supporting clinical services such as diagnostics and imaging
• Hiring of study staff
• Guidelines for document management
• Secure storage of data, drugs, devices and clinical trial consumables
• Guidelines for publishing trial results
• Templates for key clinical trial documents
• Implementation of policies, systems and standards for clinical research
• Participation in external clinical trial networks
• Fundraising for clinical trial related infrastructure

Our resources

The ACCT Centre is in a very fortunate location with direct access to the expertise and facilities of both The Children's Hospital at Westmead and Kids Research Institute. The University of Sydney is also a supportive partner offering back office support and funding several of the world class clinical investigators.

Available facilities and resources for clinical trial activities include:

• The ACCT Centre works closely with the Human Research Ethics Committee of The Children's Hospital at Westmead. This is the lead paediatric clinical research committee in NSW.
• The ACCT Centre also liaises regularly with the Research Governance Manager of Kids Research Institute, who is responsible for approval of all site specific applications.
• The ACCT Centre has a dedicated Clinical Trials Pharmacist that monitors and consults on all drug trials and operates a randomisation service.
• A Senior Biostatistician is employed and can be accessed by all researchers to plan their trials and interpret clinical trial data.
• Capacity for inpatient and outpatient studies:
  • Turner Ward: This is a unique Hospital ward consisting of a Medical Day Stay Unit, a Care by Parent Unit and an Endocrine Testing Unit with two treatment rooms, two day rooms and two space labs. The unit currently hosts clinical and research activities.
  • Clinical Trials storage: A dedicated storage area for clinical trials' pharmaceuticals exists. This is monitored for environmental parameters such as temperature and is overseen by a building monitoring system.
  • Paediatric Gait Analysis Lab: Also known as the Kids Activity Research Centre, this laboratory is a research space for assessing the gait, performance and physiology of children before, during and after clinical trial intervention. It houses state-of-the-art kinetic/kinematic outcome equipment and multiple cameras for instrumented gait analysis, strength measurement and balance assessment.
  • Conference rooms and call centres: Kids Research Institute has one large conference room, three meeting rooms and five call centre rooms.
  • Clinic Rooms: The Children's Hospital at Westmead has four consultation rooms dedicated to clinical research. These rooms have beds and basic equipment required for initial and follow-up consultations with trial participants.
  • More than 300 researchers across laboratory, population health and clinical research are involved in caring for more than 500,000 children and adolescents in NSW (which includes a third of the NSW aboriginal population).
• A state-of-the-art microscopy and imaging facility provides consultation, equipment, services and training for: Optical and fluorescence microscopy, confocal microscopy, live cell imaging, laser capture micro-dissection microscopy, digital imaging and analysis, development of techniques and experimental design.
• A resident Pathology Support Laboratory has specialised skills to provide tissue handling, general histological preparations, preparation and isolation of DNA/RNA/protein, manufacturing of tissue micro-arrays, laser capture microdissection and immuno-histochemistry and virtual microscopy technology to scan and digitally quantify histological sections.
• The Westfield Gene and Cell Medicine Facility was commissioned in 2008 and will initially be utilised for both the production of clinical-grade vector supernatant and manipulation of patient cells as part of ongoing gene therapy clinical trials.

Who is involved?

There are many departments at The Children's Hospital at Westmead and Kids Research Institute conducting clinical trials. The table below indicates the disease indication categories being studied.

Disease indications of trials over the past five years at The Children's Hospital at Westmead

For a more detailed list of current studies and clinical research capabilities, contact Dr Janelle Bowden, Clinical Trials Coordinator.