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MURDOCK Study picks up steam
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Published: November 6, 2009
The MURDOCK Study is involved in a big push to enroll residents all over Cabarrus County.
On Wednesday, the study set up at shop at Fire Station No. 7 in Concord to register firefighters.
Concord firefighters Kevin Kirk, 25, and Scott Brantley, 34, answered the e-mail call from the fire department to participate in the study.
Although they didn't know too much about the study before they got there, they wanted to help.
They gathered more information during the registration process.
"I got two kids," Brantley said. "I have a 3-week-old. This might help him in the future. This is the way they get medicines, and find cures. I didn't exactly know what the study was before I came in, but the fire department tries to help out where ever they can. We always help out."
"I want to help," Kirk said. "It's amazing to try to get 50,000 people. It's so many."
"They told us it's hard to get men," Brantley said.
"We are close to 2,000 participants now," Ashley Dunham, community health project leader of the MURDOCK Study, said Wednesday.
That's 2,000 out of the 50,000 needed for the study.
Newly re-elected Concord Mayor Scott Padgett and Concord Fire Chief Randy Holloway showed their support for the study.
They went through the enrollment process.
"I want to set an example for our citizens," Padgett said. "I am very pleased this is taking place in Cabarrus County."
Researchers involved in the study will follow participants from the area over a long period of time, collecting biological samples — blood and urine — and will track visible behaviors and physical characteristics.
Last week, they were at Jay M. Robinson High School looking for participants, but only people over 18 can participate in the study.
In the past, the mass sign ups have mostly relied on health-care professionals or future health-care professionals.
On Oct. 19, Virginia Bridges, a clinical trials assistant for the study, was at the Cabarrus College of Health Sciences to sign up faculty and students.
Chancellor Dianne Snyder was one of the first to go through the enrollment process at the college.
Snyder gave blood and urine samples to Bridges, had her blood pressure checked, her BMI checked, watched a 15 minute DVD explaining the paperwork that participants are signing, gave a medical history and answered various medical questions.
Some of the procedures and treatments we depend on today were research projects 20 years ago, Bridges explained about the importance of the study.
"They are going to come and do all these molecular, genetic studies on these samples. They will come in and work on the samples. They may look for people who have a certain disease, or have a history of a certain disease," Bridges said.
"They may go through our histories and say we are looking for participants who are 35 years of age," Snyder said. "We want them to be female, we want them to be in a certain weight category, whatever they are looking for. Then the MURDOCK people are going into their study databases and pulling out maybe 10 people that meet those study requirements."
Bridges said they need healthy people, as well as unhealthy people to create a baseline.
The researchers can go back and look at the molecular structure and the proteins in the blood stored at the time to learn why someone might come down with a certain disease.
What will this study do for the community, and why would signing up for the study be beneficial?
"It will help other people," Bridges said. "It may help your children; it may help your grandchildren. If I'm in the study I probably won't see a benefit, because it takes years and years to be able to understand the results, but my children will benefit from this."
"It's kind of altruistic," Snyder said. "We all want to help one another. So if someone 20 years from now can benefit as a result of something they found in me, in my genetics then that is a benefit."
Currently there are five sites in Cabarrus County to sign up for the study.
• Contact reporter Robin L. Gardner: 704-789-9140
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