Student Research Opportunities

Health services research: perioperative education and care pathways for major head and neck oncology and reconstruction patients, clinical outcomes for various head and neck cancer pathologies using institutional and national databases, oncology applications of artificial intelligence use, collaborative biomarker efforts with other institutions, equity diversity and inclusion in medical education and surgery. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

Establishing a human muscle cell culture library. The medical student or resident will need to go to OR to collect muscle specimens from muscle resected during head/neck cancer cases, then start growing the muscles cells in culture. The goal of the study is to determine if our protocol for culturing self-innervating cells can be successfully used with human muscle from patients with different ages and comorbidities. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

Bioprinting of inner ear oranoid models, literature review of inner ear organoid research. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

Audio recordings of individuals with spasmodic dysphonia before Botox. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

Current project involves tissue banking of surgical specimens, with cell culture and tissue culture experiments, to understand microbial effects on inflammation in CRS. Would be amenable to long-term medical student rotation and/or resident with previous experience. Medical student and residents may inquire by email.

Beginning analysis of nasal valve repair with different graft techniques, from redcap database. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

Our research investigates how epithelial stem cells are recruited, activated, and regulated during tissue repair following injury, and how their dysregulation can drive tumorigenesis. We also examine the impact of diabetes on stem cell function, where impaired activation leads to chronic, non-healing wounds, and explore novel therapeutic approaches to enhance stem cell-mediated repair in the context of diabetic wound healing. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

We study the molecular mechanisms crucial for auditory perception, illustrate how their dysregulation leads to hearing loss, and develop strategies to restore/prevent hearing loss. Medical students and residents may inquire by email.

Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training modules are required for all research at IU School of Medicine.

Login to CITI

• When starting your training, choose the “Log In Through My Organization” option
• If coming from another organization, after you are logged in, make sure to merge your organizations to ensure that all training is up to date and visible on the IU School of Medicine CITI side
• Under “Institutional Courses”, find the ‘Indiana University/IU Health’ and select ‘view courses’
• At the bottom of this page, select ‘add course’ and this will take you to a quiz
• Biomedical researcher and GCP modules
• Survey will guide you through courses to enroll 
  • Please complete social/behavioral and biomedical researcher
  • GCP
  • Biomedical responsible conduct & social and behavioral responsible conduct
  • Biological safety training, NIH recombinant DNA guidelines, dual use research of concern (DURC) and bloodborne pathogens
• Work with your PI to determine if you need to complete animal training

Conflict of Interest and Commitment training is available through One.IU

Occupational Health and Risk Assessment
(there are two parts, and you must complete both).

• check box that says researcher

E-Trainings are available through One.IU

• HIPAA Privacy & Security for New Employees
• HIPAA & Mobile Devices
• Lab Safety Training
• Laser Safety Training  

Track your training progress. 

If your research involves human subjects or is regulated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), it requires review and approval from an institutional review board (IRB) or the Human Subjects Office.

Required human subject training

All key personnel and any researchers directly interacting with human subjects as a part of a research study at IU must complete training requirements every five years. You must complete one of the following courses through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) program:

• If you are mainly engaged in biomedical research, complete Biomedical Researcher, Stage 1
• If you are mainly engaged in social or behavioral research, complete Social/Behavioral/Educational Researchers, Stage 1
• If you are a VA researcher, complete the VA CITI course, and affiliate your CITI account with Indiana University. The VA CITI course fulfils Indiana University researcher education requirement for VA researchers. Note, this training is required every three years.

IU IRB contact

Ryan Ballard
rcballar@iu.edu
(317) 278-7812

Note: IU considers audio data as identifiable data even though it is deidentified.

All IU School of Medicine investigators and research staff who work with animals in research, testing, or teaching must receive education in the proper care and use of research animals before beginning their work with animals. Additional test modules are required depending on the species and techniques used by the personnel.

Animal care and use training

To affiliate your CITI account with IU:

1. Click on ‘Main Menu’
2. Click on “Click here to affiliate with another institution”
3. In the drop-down box, type and select: “Indiana University/IU Health”
4. Click next Follow the prompts

You will also need to complete the Occupational Health and Safety For Animal Users modules. It’s better to do this once you have an IU network ID, so no rush to get this done until you are here at IU or have an IU network ID. However, this will need to be done before the protocols are approved.

Laboratory Animal Resource Center (LARC)

Learn more about the IU School of Medicine Laboratory Animal Resource Center (LARC).

To inquire about all necessary LARC training requirements, contact Karl McClimon at kaanthon@iu.edu.

The Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) was established under the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules to provide local review and oversight of nearly all forms of research utilizing recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules.

Please see below for various links related to IU and the IBC.

Institutional Biosafety Committee: Compliance

Submissions to the IBC

New Protocols: Submissions to the IBC

IBC: Policies

IBC: Forms and Resources

Reportable Events: IBC

Hazardous Materials Transportation Training
The Hazardous Materials Transportation course is required for all employees who handle hazardous materials packages. This could include administrative assistance, laboratory personnel, and dock personnel.

Formaldehyde Hazard Communication Training
The Formaldehyde Hazard Communication Training is intended to train IU employees on safe work practices when working with or around formaldehyde.

Compressed Gas Cylinder Safety Training
This course instructs IU faculty, staff and temporary employees in the safe handling, storage, and transportation of compressed gas cylinders.

Personal Protective Equipment Training
This course is intended to train supervisors and employees on the proper standard procedures for using personal protective equipment (PPE) for protection against potential occupational exposure hazards when engineering and administrative controls are not feasible or effective.

Walking and Working Surface Safety Training
This course is for staff/students working on campus to learn to safely navigate working surfaces to avoid injury.