The Challenge: When Your Recruitment Plan Meets Reality
When Jyoti Mishra, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego and Co-Director of the Neural Engineering and Translation (NEAT) Labs, secured her first major NIH clinical trial, the path to enrollment looked straightforward on paper.
NEATLabs sits at the intersection of neuroscience and digital health, engineering novel neural and digital health technologies as therapeutics for mental health care. Their current study—Mindfulness Engaged Brain Stimulation for Depression (MEND)—is a first-of-its-kind treatment combining FDA-approved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with digital mindfulness training for people with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). It’s a demanding protocol: participants complete up to 23 visits over four to seven weeks at UCSD’s La Jolla campus, including 20 TMS treatment sessions.
The original recruitment plan relied on referrals from UCSD’s existing psychiatric clinics—a natural starting point for a department-based research team. But when the study launched, a hard reality emerged.
“When we started, we found out that a lot of the patients with the correct eligibility criteria were already being routed to other higher priority studies,” Dr. Mishra explained. “Our goals then shifted toward doing broader community-based recruitment rather than referrals from our UCSD clinics.”
That shift created an immediate need for community outreach at a scale the team couldn’t manage internally, and the pressure to execute was significant. NIH grants operate on strict milestone criteria: hit your enrollment targets, or put future funding phases at risk.
The Population Problem
Reaching the right participants was a precision challenge.
The study targets individuals with treatment-resistant depression—people who have failed to respond to or tolerate adequate doses of antidepressant medications. That narrows the eligible pool considerably. Severe depression represents only about 15-20% of total depression cases, and the nature of the condition adds another layer of difficulty.
“It’s a hard population,” Dr. Mishra noted. “In that state, people are not engaging with others so much, which means they’re also potentially engaging with social media less. So reaching that population becomes more difficult.”
The kind of targeted, iterative digital outreach required to reliably surface this population—and convert them into enrolled participants—was beyond what an academic research lab could sustain alone.
“We could put out our own social media ads, but not at the level your company does,” she said. “So we had a need for community-based enrollment that OpenClinica did a really good job of helping fulfill.”
A Trusted Introduction and a Seamless Start
NEATLabs didn’t come to OpenClinica cold. Colleagues in UCSD’s psychiatry department had already been using the Recruitment platform and recommended it. That peer endorsement mattered.
“We partnered with OpenClinica pretty early on in the process because other colleagues were already using the service and had relayed a good experience with the service,” Dr. Mishra said. “That was a great way for us to feel confident early on.”
Onboarding lived up to the recommendation. “I found it quite seamless,” she said. She also noted that the platform had visibly improved since her colleagues’ earlier experiences. “My impression is that you worked on iterative improvements to your service over the years. Anything that did come up during our study was addressed and refined in an iterative way.”
Iterating Toward the Milestone
Getting campaigns live was only the first step. About three to six months into the study, the team recognized an opportunity to sharpen their ads and improve conversion.
“We iterated on our ads with OpenClinica during the study process,” Dr. Mishra said. “The customer support team was really great with helping us do that—they had meetings with us to enhance our enrollment goals. They were very responsive.”
That responsiveness paid off. By the close of Phase 1, the campaign had delivered 129% of its lead goal — ahead of pace and ahead of schedule. NEATLabs completed Phase 1 enrollment in January 2026 and launched Phase 2 recruitment in May. As a first major NIH trial for the lab, the stakes were high, and the outcome was clear.
“We needed to make sure we were meeting every milestone, and you all helped us do just that,” she said.
Looking Ahead: A Multi-Study Partnership
What began as a solution to a single study’s recruitment challenge has grown into a longer-term relationship. NEATLabs is now using OpenClinica Recruitment for a second R01-funded study as well—a trial targeting individuals with comorbid chronic pain and depression.
“We’re using it in this current study for the next three years and plan to use it for future grants as well,” Dr. Mishra said. “We’re excited to continue to work with you.”
When asked to describe the experience in a few words, her answer was direct: “OpenClinica is very responsive, efficient, and helped us meet our goals in a timely manner.”
About UC San Diego NEAT Labs
The Neural Engineering and Translation (NEAT) Labs at UC San Diego, co-directed by Associate Professors Jyoti Mishra and Dhakshin Ramanathan, develops and tests novel neural and digital health technologies as therapeutics for mental health populations. The lab’s current focus is on intervention studies for treatment-resistant depression, including the MEND trial—a multimodal treatment combining FDA-approved TMS with digital mindfulness training currently in its second study phase.
The Product in Use
OpenClinica Recruitment: Precision digital recruitment for clinical trials — including targeted multi-channel outreach, branded landing pages, smart eligibility pre-screening, and real-time funnel analytics. Designed for academic researchers, sponsors, and CROs who need predictable enrollment and IRB-compliant outreach across diverse populations.
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