(May 17, 2017)

With the addition of psychoneuroendocrinology researcher, Douglas A. Granger, Ph.D., DAACRO’s advisory board continues to cultivate a network of multi-disciplinary scientific experts, enabling access to key scientific knowledge that is required, but not often achieved through traditional Contract Research Organizations (CROs).

DAACRO combines CRO standards with psychonneuroendocrine stress expertise, and further enhances its scientific power by providing investigators access to a high-profile scientific advisory board. Today, psychoneuroendocrinology researcher, Douglas A. Granger, Ph.D., has agreed to join the scientific advisory board. “We are committed to offering superior services and solutions for clinical and research studies that require the application of meticulous scientific oversight and quality standards at the highest level,” says Dr. Juliane Hellhammer, Ph.D., DAACRO founder and CEO. “By continuously developing our scientific advisory board, we are able to bridge the gap between academia’s scientific knowledge and a CRO’s regulatory knowledge, while still employing a level of flexibility that supports successful solutions for evidence-based research.”

When it comes to planning and performing clinical trials, companies traditionally choose between collaborating with an academic unit or with a CRO. Although academia offers scientific excellence, it is commonly inefficient and lacks regulatory knowledge when it comes to performing clinical trials. For CROs, it is usually the opposite: CROs perform clinical trials in line with regulatory standards, but they lack the expertise in specialized scientific fields. However, both scientific excellence and regulatory knowledge are essential in completing economic studies with strong results. Therefore, DAACRO has always cultivated and emphasized its own psychoneuroendocrine scientific expertise, and further excels by integrating a group of internationally reputed scientists. “We are thrilled to have Dr. Granger joining DAACRO’s Scientific Advisory Board,” said Hellhammer. “His participation will be essential for industry-sponsored clinical trials that rely on highly experienced salivary bioscience expertise.”

Dr. Granger is a Chancellor’s Professor of Psychology, Public Health and Pediatrics and founding director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research at the University of California, Irvine. Granger’s research is elucidating the development and application of non-invasive methods for measuring key biological processes and systems using saliva. “The field of salivary bioscience is emerging and our ability to harness the new knowledge has the potential to make a major difference in people’s lives,” says Granger.

During his career, Granger has studied hormone-behavior relationships in a wide range of interdisciplinary fields, including behavioral, developmental, social and health sciences. Using a wide-range of salivary biomarkers, Granger’s research encircles the human lifespan (from infants and children to adults and the elderly), including extremely high risk and clinical situations (such as clinic-referred children, maltreated and abused adolescents, victimized children, mentally ill patients, mothers and infants in the context of rural poverty), as well as low-risk and normative samples.

Before joining the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, Granger was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in the School of Nursing, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Medicine, and at Pennsylvania State University in the Departments of Biobehavioral Health, Human Development and Family Studies. “Today, we have sufficient basic and descriptive information to begin to employ these tools and to determine whether they will add value to prevention and intervention science,” Granger said. He begins his position on DAACRO’s advisory board in May.

In addition to working in academia, Granger is the founder and chief scientific and strategy advisor for the company Salimetrics. With corporate headquarters in Pennsylvania and Carlsbad, CA, Salimetrics assists thousands of salivary researchers, in more than 20 countries around the world with tools and resources to deliver accurate results. DAACRO has a close collaboration with Salimetrics, and since 2013 DAACRO’s Saliva Lab Trier has been a Center of Excellence Lab offering a wide range of Salimetrics assays and products. DAACRO’s Saliva Lab Trier consults and provides analyses to sponsored clinical trials and various academic groups, including European funded research projects. “Using the highest quality assays allows us to produce salivary bioscience data at the highest quality standards for our customers,” says Hellhammer. “Dr. Granger’s appointment will also strengthen the collaboration between Salimetrics and the Saliva Lab Trier’s stress biology and assay resources.”

About DAACRO:
DAACRO is a full service contract research organization founded in 2006 by Dr. Juliane Hellhammer. The company is located in Trier/Germany and collaborates worldwide with academic and industrial partners. The DAACRO team includes scientific and strategic consultants, clinicians, statisticians, programmer and a salivary laboratory team. DAACRO’s expertise is combining scientific excellence with quality standards of clinical trials supporting product development for pharma, food and cosmetics industries and health care providers.

About Salimetrics:
Salimetrics’ assay kits and CLIA-certified testing services are used to measure salivary analytes related to stress, behavior and development, inflammation, sleep, reproduction, health and immune function. Founded in 1998 by Douglas A. Granger, Ph.D., Salimetrics, LLC supports CROs, pharmaceuticals, academic researchers and the immunodiagnostic industry around the world with innovative immunoassay products, non-invasive saliva collection methods, and laboratory testing services.

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