Pitt biostatisticians helped found the UNICORN Network

Three people in Pitt’s Center for Biostatistics and Qualitative Methodology (CBQM) played a key role in the development of the University Data Coordinating Centers (UNICORN) Network, a consortium of new and established academic data coordinating centers (DCC) across the United States.

Director Kaleab Abebe, a professor of medicine, biostatistics and clinical and translational science; Associate Director for Clinical Trials and Data Coordination Cristina Murray-Krezan, an associate professor of medicine; and clinical data coordinator Michelle Lancet were part of the initial meeting that conceived the UNICORN Network in March 2024.

Abebe and Murray-Krezan remain active in the UNICORN Network’s leadership as members of the executive committee and steering committee, respectively. Early initiatives of the UNICORN Network include conducting a national survey of academic DCCs to understand the current landscape, including the number of centers across the U.S. as well as their organizational structures and capabilities. As part of an invited panel, Murray-Krezan presented those preliminary survey results at the Society for Clinical Trials Annual Meeting in May.

Pitt’s CBQM, comprised of 11 faculty and 26 staff, has led DCC efforts for 15-plus trials over the past nine years and is a founding member of the UNICORN Network.

Academic DCCs are essential to the success of large clinical research studies as they provide collaborative leadership for multi-site studies and support the study design and collecting, verifying, storing, and analyzing of data. The mission of the UNICORN Network is to improve clinical research by developing best practices, assessing necessary infrastructure and identifying professional development opportunities in data coordinating.