Management of the project

The project is overseen by a number of committees/panels, which were established in consultation with the financial sponsors of the project and the Ministers of Health in Ukraine and Russia. The current management structure reflects the ways in which the project has evolved and will move forward. A schema of the project management is shown in the figure. The responsibility for the project as a whole is taken by the Steering Committee (SC) and all Panels report to the SC, either directly or through the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The composition and responsibilities of the SC, the Scientific Advisory Board and the External Review Panel (ERP) are described below.

Steering Committee (SC)

The Steering Committee is composed of one representative from each of the funding bodies (currently the European Commission, the National Cancer Institute of the United States of America, and Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation of Japan) and the Health Ministers (or their representative) from Russia and Ukraine. If a representative is unable to attend a meeting, the funding organization or Ministry concerned may appoint a deputy to take his or her place.

The role of the Steering Committee is to:

• Provide strategic direction regarding the development of the project, in particular the collection and use of the samples and information collated by the CTB.
• Monitor the progress and financial management of the CTB
• Provide arbitration, when necessary, on matters referred to it by the CTB subsidiary panels.

The SC will normally meet every 15-18 months and will receive a project report, the 4-year budget plan and Minutes of the meetings of the SAB and the other Panels and Working Groups.

Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)

The SAB comprises representatives from the following disciplines – clinical thyroidology, bioinformatics, bioethics, radiation dosimetry, tissue banking, end use researcher, the Chair of the Pathology Panel, and a representative from Ukraine and Russia, if they are not represented in one of the other listed disciplines.

The role of the SAB is to:

1. Advise on scientific development of CTB
2. Review annual progress of the CTB and receive and review the Annual report
3. Comment on proposals from the Project Director, the Project Manager and from any of the other constitutive panels of the CTB
4. Comment on the milestones and deliverables for the next year as outlined in the Annual Report
5. Advise CTB on current worldwide perspective and activity relevant to the project
6. Receive minutes from the Pathology Panel and other working groups as appropriate
7. Comment on quality control and ethical arrangements for the project.
8. The Chair will receive reports on applications approved for access by the ERP and will be responsible (in consultation with other members of the SAB and/or the Steering Committee) for a decision on those applications falling below the threshold score for access.

Three subcommittees of the SAB oversee specialist areas of the project:

The Pathology Panel
This panel comprises members nominated by each of the Eastern European governments and the sponsoring organisations. It meets every 9-12 months to review histological material and to assign a consensus diagnosis for each specimen housed in the CTB. The Pathology Panel also reviews cases of thyroid cancer and benign disease from patients enrolled in NCI-sponsored epidemiological studies.

The Bioinformatics Working Group
The CTB is responsible for the collation of details of the cases enrolled in the study and of the data generated from research studies using the material. In order to make data from the study more widely available and to permit secondary research on the data generated, work on a bioinformatics section of the project was started in 2008. A panel of international experts in Bioinformatics has recently been appointed to assist the Coordinating Centre in the development of this aspect of the project.

The Dosimetry Working Group
A sub project funded by the EC, which is scheduled to start in autumn 2009, will gather data on the measured or calculated dose to the thyroid for each case held in the CTB and will add this data to the CTB database. The remit of the Dosimetry Working Group is to oversee this work and to advise the SAB and the Coordinating Centre on issues relating to dosimetry.

Standard Operating Procedures
SOPs are used for all stages of the collection and processing of samples for the CTB. During the last year, SOPs for the management, operations and financial processes have also been agreed by the Steering Committee. An area of the website is currently being developed to allow registered users to access the SOPs.