Recently we held a half-day of talks here at the Institute to highlight the role of our Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine in setting up and running local, national and international clinical trials.
Located in a different building from our research labs, the hard work that goes into running and following these complex processes is often under-appreciated.
We hoped to inform our researchers of the support available to them should they find themselves heading down a translational route, and thank the CECM for their invaluable service.
Centre Lead Professor Peter Schmid began by addressing confusion over the difference between our CECM (an internal Centre) and the ECMC - Cancer Research UK's national network of Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres.
In his introduction he highlighted the ‘Clinic to Bench’ concept - conducting biomarker-driven studies using resources and data from clinical work and going back to the laboratory to learn more. This does not happen everywhere and is a strength here at Barts.
Barts is also the biggest site for immunotherapy trials with 19 trials current open and over 180 patients through pre-screening or screened.
Dr Jeff Davies from our Centre for Haemato-Oncology then spoke about the Centre's long history of clinical research and trials. Haematological malignancies studied here include lymphomas, leukaemias and myelomas. The incidence of all of these cancer types has increased over the last decade by around 10% overall.
A particularly interesting finding Dr Davies shared was that treating patients on trials actually improves their outcome over supportive/palliative care alone.
He also mentioned that we are now a TAP Centre; part of the "Trials Acceleration Programme" with Bloodwise and we currently have 3 TAP studies running.
Immunotherapy studies at Barts include PD1/PDL1 blockade, CD66-targeted radio-immunoablation, working on how to avoid off-target radiotherapy pre-transplant and, soon, CAR-T cell therapies.
We also heard how Barts is at the forefront for trials of this type as:
- The UK's top recruiter for current national studies in acute leukemia (AML17 and UKALL14)
- The leading European recruiter to elacytarabine commercial study in relapsed AML
- Top UK recruiter in 2 AML studies
- Top of tumour-specific groups for NCRN recruitment in lymphoma
The centre aims to increase this activity, and the CECM is essential if we are to achieve this.
Professor John F Marshall in our Centre for Tumour Biology gave a talk demonstrating both the complexity of trial set-up for researchers, and the extent of support offered by the CECM.
His description of the thorough, multi-stage process that must be adhered to in order to begin trials based on promising research findings was both funny and informative.
The Marshall group will soon begin a trial of cancer imaging with IMANOVA, run by QMUL, using the integrin αvβ6 RGD peptide. The group also hopes to trial a new antibody as a treatment, and may also begin work on CAR-T cells with KCL depending on funding.
Dr Peter Szlosarek from our Centre for Molecular Oncology recalled his journey from a laboratory discovery with potential through to treating patients and seeing significant tumour volume reduction and stable disease in mesothelioma.
In the second half of the event, we heard from CECM colleagues about the intricacies of trial set-up through to completion.
First, Kelly Mousa from the Clinical Trial Set Up team took us through the four main stages of trials: concept and design; setup; execution; and analysis/reporting.
Second, Marianne Tomsa from the Cancer Research Delivery Group explained their role, what kind of expertise they have and how they both support researchers embarking upon their own trials and manage them as they run.
We also heard from Research Nurse Katherine Mutsvangwa, who talked us through a typical busy day in the hospital looking after patients and using attention to detail to make sure trial requirements are met.
Finally, we were honoured to hear from lymphoma patient, Deborah Sims, who shared her journey from diagnosis to recent trial enrolment with us; the toll it has taken on her family and what the opportunity to be part of clinical research means to her.
We are very grateful for this opportunity to connect with one of so many patients for whom we try to remain hopeful that our work will one day help. Thanks also to all of our speakers and all who came to listen.
Keep an eye on our clinical news to stay up to date on what's happening with patient-focused medicine and research here at BCI.
Recently we held a half-day of talks here at the Institute to highlight the role of our Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine in setting up and running local, national and international clinical trials.