MURDOCK Study looks to churches for new recruits

Steve Ayers

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

CONCORD — Joining Duke University's MURDOCK Study is as important as building a childcare facility in Ukraine or collecting canned goods for the food pantry, a church pastor says.

"It's just as much of a ministry as anything else we do," said Dr. Steve Ayers, senior pastor for McGill Baptist Church on Poplar Tent Road in Concord.

Today, Ayers' church is hosting the largest mass enrollment event to date for Duke's groundbreaking medical research project, the Measurement to Understand Reclassification of Disease of Cabarrus/Kannapolis. The study is based at the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis.

Named for campus founder David Murdock, the study hinges on developing a community registry of 50,000 people who live in Kannapolis and Cabarrus County.

Duke scientists will use data from the registry and molecular tools to help find new ways to diagnose and treat chronic diseases including arthritis, cancer and multiple sclerosis.

More than 40 church members had signed up to register for the study today, making it the largest enrollment yet. Ayers said he expects additional people to register before the event ends at 3 p.m.

Ayers will roll up his own sleeve to give a blood sample at 1 p.m.

McGill Baptist isn't "your ordinary Baptist church," he said. "We are a progressive church that understands that God has given a brain that we are to use."

The study parallels the church's holistic perspective on health, he said.

"We understand Jesus to be the great physician that wants us all whole," Ayers said. "How better to be a part of that process than to make ourselves available for this study that may have great benefits."

Churches will play an important role in reaching the 50,000-participant goal, said Dr. Ashley Dunham, community project leader for the study.

"Churches are a logical place for us to start," she said. "Churches are an important part of a community, and people look to their churches for guidance."

Another Cabarrus County church, Central United Methodist in Concord, has hosted a mass enrollment. Dunham said she hopes other churches will follow.

"People do things through their church to support the community," she said. "With this study we are going to improve medicine, and that would benefit the community."

Duke has conducted mass enrollments at schools, workplaces, even a fire department. So far, 2,141 people have enrolled.

Murdock pledged $35 million in 2007 to launch the study, which is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and run for decades.

"We need everybody they can get to be involved," Ayers said. "This is a gift that we can all give to our children and grandchildren."