Technology Research on Humans: History, Boundaries, Best Practices, and Team-Based Workable Paths Forward

July 18, 2018
Dr. Jeremy Block | Medaptive Health

Advanced technology in software and hardware that interacts with humans can radically benefit from a team-based approach to the research and regulatory process. What we call human subjects research has been going on for time immemorial. In the United States, the history of the last century resulted in regulations that are reactionary. What is critical as we develop and deploy new technology in this world is to conduct this research being sensitive to that history without being crippled by it, to understand boundaries well so we know what threshold we are on, and to learn from one another how to conduct research on humans employing some best practices that make the researchers, participants, and oversight groups lives easier.

Speaker Details

Jeremy is a nationally recognized expert in the research and regulatory side of healthcare for digital health, and pharma/biotech/devices. Dr. Block has expertise in human subjects protections and was the youngest Institutional Review Board Chair of a Top 15 medical center in the United States before starting Venture Catalyst and subsequently becoming a Co-Founder of the health technology company Medaptive Health. He contributed to the early development of the Apple ResearchKit framework, where he co-designed the first eConsent platform on a mobile device and is involved in ResearchStack for Android. He is a co-investigator and executive director at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center working on digital health trials for cancer genetics employing a conversation chatbot for research informed consent. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Public & International Affairs at Baruch College, CUNY where he teaches ethics & decision-making.

Past organizations include: Duke University, US Office of Management & Budget (Bush & Obama), The City of New York (Bloomberg), The National Academies, Rutgers University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Jeremy lives in Manhattan where he’s a die-hard Mets fan and active runner (albeit slower than when he was a harrier in college). He’ll try just about any unique food once. He holds a bachelors in chemistry and biology, a masters in public policy, and a doctorate in biochemistry; all from Duke University.