Research | VA Long Beach Health Care | Veterans Affairs

The Network of Dedicated Enrollment Sites (NODES) is a consortium of VA medical centers that have teams (nodes) dedicated to conducting VA Cooperative Studies Program (CSP) clinical trials

to enhance the overall performance, compliance, and management of CSP multi-site research. In addition, NODES share best practices and provide local insights to CSP Central Office and CSP

Centers on trial design and related considerations that can help with study management and conduct. Further, each node helps to create a stronger local community of clinical research. For

more information, visit the VA Cooperative Studies Program website.  VA Long Beach Healthcare System (VALBHS) has been a site for NODES since the program was established in 2012. There are

currently 21 NODES working together to share best practice and provide insights. NODES DIRECTOR Timothy Morgan, MD, has been the VALB NODES Director since 2012. He is the Chief of Hepatology

at the VALBHS. In addition to leading VALB NODES, he serves in multiple leadership positions at the VA as well as external to VA. He is the Director of the VA’s Liver Disease Program. For

the past 35 years, Dr. Morgan has been a Principal Investigator (PI) on clinical research projects, including CSPs, multicenter NIH clinical trials, investigator-initiated, and

industry-sponsored projects. He is the Site Investigator for the VA’s Million Veteran Program (MVP), and CSP #2023 (the PREMIUM Study), and was the Principal Proponent for CSP #275. Dr.

Morgan is the chair of the VALB Research and Department (R&D) Committee.  NODES ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS (ADO) Aliya Asghar has been with VALB NODES since 2012. She is a foreign

medical graduate with extensive knowledge in clinical trials. Ms. Asghar joined NODES after serving as a research coordinator for 8 years with Dr. Morgan on NIH, and Industry- sponsored

trials. Ms. Asghar is a scientific voting member of the local Institutional Review Board (IRB). NODES SUPPORT STAFF Enrollment Manager: Romena Helal, MS  Quality Assurance Specialist: Karyn

Isip, BA NODES Assistant: Diana Pham, BS