In order to learn more about the team behind Citruslabs, we spoke with CTO and Co-founder, Roger Arellano about his role and hopes for the future of clinical studies.
1. What does a typical day in your role at Citruslabs look like?
"A typical day starts on Slack to check any unread messages or emails, then I shift focus to prepare for developer stand up calls where we briefly discuss tasks that we are working on and we share any updates and issues, also any Asks for help if something is blocking us from progress. It is important that our team stays productive so a big part of my job is to clear any roadblocks preventing this from happening and also to make sure everyone understands the bigger picture of what we are building."
"If there are any urgent issues, I respond to these first before moving on to check open code review requests by our developer team. After the code is reviewed and approved, we deploy it into a testing environment where we do final checks and run tests before marking it ready to go live."
"During the course of the day I also participate in meetings across different departments of the company, it is important to keep everyone up to date on the progress of our products or to communicate any priority shifts we need to make."
2. Why did you want to be involved in Citruslabs, and in Clinical trials?
"Clinical trials are a very important part of advancing research and developing new treatments and drugs for different health conditions. I believe that by helping people to participate in clinical research we are contributing to something bigger for the greater good, for example helping finding new drugs or treatments for tough health conditions, and therefore bringing hope to people. Being involved with Citruslabs and clinical trials is a very exciting part of my job as we continuously contribute in this space by building technology and apps that are helping people to participate in clinical trials, and also helping clinical trials find candidates for their studies."
3. What do you hope Citruslabs is able to provide people with?
"I hope Citruslabs is able to provide people with information and to encourage them to participate in a clinical trial, helping answer any questions people might have about the process involved and the benefits of joining one. I believe it is important for people to understand better how clinical trials work and how to participate in them, clearing away any misconceptions or fears about them."
"By participating in clinical research we hope to be able to provide people with access to new treatments and expert medical care."
4. What is the most rewarding part of your job? The most challenging?
"Being part of a hard-working team with the same vision and to be involved in building products and apps that help people and clinical trials is a very exciting part of my job."
"We are constantly innovating, updating and improving our apps and even though this can be challenging, at the same time it is a very rewarding experience, as once we finish a new feature and put it out there, we can see it making an impact."
5. Where do you hope to see Citruslabs go in the next 5 years?
"There are many possibilities but I certainly hope we continue to provide people with easy ways to participate in clinical research as well as continue to help build the bridge between clinical research and patients."
6. What is one thing you wish people knew about clinical trials? (Especially during COVID-19.)
"I wish people knew that there are lots of clinical trials out there waiting for participants to join them, I wish they knew about all of the benefits that joining one of them can bring and that there is a lot of information available to clear any doubts or concerns people might have. Joining a clinical trial helps advance medical research, and it ultimately gives hope to many people waiting for new treatments or drugs to be developed for many health conditions."
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