The MRCT Center has, over its 14-year existence, produced and made freely available a variety of trainings and resources on topics from good clinical practice and return of research results, to diversifying clinical trials and improving health literacy. More recently, Mark has devoted much of his time and energy to clarifying the secondary research uses of personal data under the jurisdiction of the EU General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR).
Mark’s nominee praised his “dedication to teaching and fostering talent” among both his students and his colleagues. Since 1986, Mark has taught health care law and finance, public health law, the law of human subjects research, occupational safety and health law, and managed care law at a number of the nation’s most prestigious law schools, including Columbia, NYU, Harvard, and Yale. Since 2014, Mark has been an affiliated faculty member at Yale Law School’s Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy. At Ropes & Gray, Mark is known to be a generous and supportive mentor to more junior associates. Mark regularly shares his deep knowledge and experience with many in the PRIM&R and wider research and ethics oversight community, through his writings and presentations.
Mark is a co-founder and board member of Vivli, a nonprofit that collects and shares participant-level anonymized data from clinical trials conducted by life sciences companies, hospitals, and academic research institutions. In 2004, Mark served as the first executive director for Harvard University’s AIDS/HIV treatment programs in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Botswana, funded through the US Department of State under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and later chaired the Harvard oversight committee for that project. As executive vice-president of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in 2005-06, Mark established a vaccine study center in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, in collaboration with Africa University. While Senior Associate Provost for Research at Harvard University, Mark also served as acting director of the Harvard Primate Center during a period of regulatory crisis in 2012.
Mark’s background also includes holding senior policy and administrative positions at the New York State and New York City Departments of Health, at the latter of which he directed the Ryan White CARE Act program, providing medical, substance abuse and mental health treatment to New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. In 1993, Mark served as a senior legal advisor to the health reform efforts at the Clinton White House.
The person who nominated Mark noted, “It is impossible to overstate Mark Barnes's contributions to the research community. He is a tireless advocate—not only for his clients, but also for ethical research and diversity among research participants and beneficiaries.” PRIM&R could not agree more. And so, it is with great pleasure and immense gratitude for his devoted service to the research ethics and oversight community, that PRIM&R presents Mark Barnes with the PRIM&R Service Award for 2023.
The PRIM&R Service Award will be presented to Mark in person on December 5, 2023 at the PRIM&R Annual Conference(PRIMR23) in Washington D.C.