MINNEAPOLIS — The University of Minnesota is proposing a plan to improve oversight of its clinic research, 11 years after a man enrolled in a drug trial committed suicide in a case that has raised questions about research trials in the university’s psychiatry department.

A panel of experts recommends reorganizing the Institutional Review Board which determines whether studies are safe. The recommendations, which were issued Monday for review by the committee, also would reassign who investigates claims of researcher misconduct and reassess how vulnerable patients are recruited to studies, the Star Tribune reported. The experts also suggest that the studies receiving board approval should be more frequently monitored.

The recommendations weren’t specific to Dan Markingson, but reflect concerns raised about his death in 2004. A recent legislative audit concluded the circumstances under which Markingson enrolled in the study were potentially coercive, but did not prove a link between the drug trial and his death.