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A diverse group of clinical trial participants can help answer not just whether a drug works, but also for whom.

Researchers continue to wonder why minorities don't participate more in clinical trials and what can be done to increase their participation.

That's a question San Francisco's Loomis Group now finds itself wrestling with after winning an assignment that's a tad different than what the integrated marketing firm is typically asked to do.

A Swedish clinical trials management company retained Loomis to recruit 250,000 diabetic and pre-diabetic overweight people interested in enrolling in a late-stage clinical trial in the United States for a new obesity drug.

The assignment calls for 20 percent of participants to be African American and 20 percent Latino.

Researchers will winnow the 250,000 candidates down to just 2,000 for the two-year trial, which will be conducted at about 50 sites in California, Texas and Louisiana.

"They want a representative stake of minorities because diabetes disproportionately affects those two minorities," said Tanya Rodante, senior vice president of medical and life science accounts for Loomis.

Divergent views There is a widely held belief among the research community that minorities, particularly African Americans, are reluctant to participate in clinical trials because they distrust t...

"There's a lot of interest nationally and internationally in ethnic history and places of origin," Strausbaugh said.

"We are hoping to paint a genetic portrait of the many players in the Venture Smith story.

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It's going to take some ideal circumstances to take Venture Smith all the way back to Africa and a lot of luck." "It's exciting to be a part of history," added Craig O'Connor, one of the graduate students on the team.

"It's going to be a learning experience for everyone involved." Gina Ryan of Bridgeport, a Smith descendant, had heard the story of Smith for years and hopes more people can learn about it and the history of slavery.

"It's nice to see them taking such interest and take it from the beginning," she said.

"This should be such a national tale.

It's something we think everyone would be interested in and it's my heritage.

I'm so proud of that fact." Stephen Solley, a descendant of one of the slave owners, said there is a lot of work to be done in an effort to tell the story of Smith, who died at 76 in 1805.

"We need to figure out how to take a story about the man and his life and bring it to the classroom," Solley said.

"The thing that makes Venture Smith is the fact that it is a Co...