The Therapeutics Research Institute (TRI)

TRI's Background

TRI was incorporated in 2001 as a non-profit corporation in Nebraska and is a 501(c)(3) public charity.  It publishes a bi-monthly newsletter at no charge, highlighting peer-reviewed published medical literature identifying useful outcomes in alternative medicine. 

Dietary Supplements Trial Background of TRI

The Therapeutics Research Institute is currently sponsoring and administrating a 10-year trial evaluating the effectiveness of the supplement DIM (diindolylmethane) as a possible contributor to cancer risk reduction.  It has administered and supported a national 6-month trial on the effectiveness of a herbal supplement for its impact on men with prostate cancer.  It has also been involved in helping administer an onhgoing 15-year trial on a complex supplement combination for cancer risk reduction.  It issues a bi-monthly newsletter, since 2002, distributed without charge to various trial participants.  TRI has helped design and implement several other smaller trials, all involving dietary supplements.  TRI has provided consultation and specially developed protocols using dietary supplements, for the past 7 years, in response to a wide variety of hundreds of inquiries nation-wide.

Steven Evans, Trial Administrator

Steven Evans, M.S., B.A., Senior Research Scientist and President of TRI, Inc. served for 14 years as Director of Instructional Science Research for the Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Nursing for the Health Sciences at the Creighton University Medical Center, and for the past 25 years has been Senior Research Scientist with the Hereditary Cancer Institute of the Creighton University Medical School.

He served for four years as Vice President for Health Services Research for the PACE Health Systems Corporation, and for five years as Director of Research and Senior Research Scientist for OncorMed, Inc., as well as Director, Office of Research, of Gene Logic, Inc. for five years.  Mr. Evans has disseminated and discussed his research and analysis in over 100 journal articles and/or professional presentations, monographs, chapters, books, and/or technical papers.  His areas of focus have included the uses of dietary supplements, cancer risk analysis, expert health care systems and data mining applied to cancer syndrome detection.  During the past decade, his special interests have been on nutraceutical [dietary supplement] research focusing both on cancer prevention as well as other diseases including Parkinson's and MS.  He holds patents in nutraceutical supplement research as well as medically-related data mining methodology and artificial intelligence health care applications.  In 1989, he was one of the eight designated World Experts in Medical Informatics by the China Council for MEDINFO '89 at the 6th World Congress on Medical Informatics.

Evans has designed, developed, implemented, and was Trial Administrator for at least four similar dietary supplement trials similar to the one underway for Formula #12 for Parkinson's patients.  He has been author and Primary Investigator for a number of nationally-funded projects and has been an advisor on numerous others.  He also serves as President and Senior Research Scientist for Genetics Services Management, Inc. as well as its Trial Administrator for two 10-year ongoing trials.

PUBLICATIONS:

1.  Evans, S and Fusaro, R.M. “Central Dogma: The Clinical View,”  The Scientist 19(16):9, Aug. 29, 2005.  [on the role of epigenetics and its impact on practical clinical assessment].

2.  Evans, S.  “Interim Clinical Study Results for a Supplement for Cancer Risk Reduction,” Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients #264: 66-69, July, 2005.

3.  Evans, S.  “Addressing Human Dimensions in Implementing a Nutraceutical Product Trial,”  The Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association 2:3-6, 2004.

4.  Block, J.B. and Evans, S.  “Strategies for More Effective CAM Clinical Practice,”  The Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association 4:14-19, 2002..

5.  Evans, S, and Block, J..B.  “Why Funding for Nutraceutical Clinical Trial Research Will Remain Minimal.”  The Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association  1:12-15, 2002

6.  Evans S, Block J.B.  “A Review of Recent Results Addressing the Potential Interactions of Antioxidants with Cancer Drug Therapy.”    The Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association 1:11-20, 2001.

7.  Evans, S. and Block, J.B. "Ethical Issues Regarding Fee-for-Service Funded Research within a Complementary Medicine Context," The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Vol. 7, No. 5, 2001.

8.  Evans, S., and Block, J.B. "Clinical Evidence Supporting Cancer Risk Reduction with Antioxidants and Implications for Diet and Supplementation," The Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association, Vol. 3, No. 3, fall, 2000, pp 6-16.

9. Evans, S.  The PACE System — An Expert Consulting System for Nursing.  New York: Springer. 1997. [Volume 14 in the Springer international Computers and Medicine Series]

10.  Evans, S., et al. "Automated Detection of Hereditary Syndromes Using Data Mining," Computers and Biomedical Research, Vol. 30, No.5, 1997, pp. 337-348.

11.  Evans, S, Lynch, HT, and Fusaro, RM.  "Clinical Results Using Informatics to Evaluate Hereditary Cancer Risk,"  in Gardner, RM, ed.  Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care. New Orleans: Hanley & Belfus, October, 1995 pp 834-838.

12. Evans, S. "Successful Strategies for the Dissemination of PACE/CPC: A Nursing Expert System for Clinical Care," in Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics, Geneva, Switzerland, 1993.

13.  Evans, S. "COMMES: An Expert System for Nursing Continuing Education," in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Medical Informatics and Education, Victoria, May, 1989.

14.  Evans, S. "Expert Systems in Nursing Care: Issues and Expectation," in Proceedings of the 12th Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in the Medical Care, Washington, D.C., November, 1988.

15.  Evans, S. "A Clinical Tool for Nursing," Computers in Healthcare, August, 1988, pp. 41-44.

16.  Evans, S. "The COMMES Nursing Consultant System - A Practical clinical Tool for Patient Care," in Proceedings of 3rd International Symposium on Nursing Use of Computers and Information Science, Dublin: Mosby, 1988.

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