The Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine (CECM) supports the delivery of early-phase cancer studies, bringing together an academically led Trials Team and a Cancer Research Delivery Group to develop, run and deliver clinical trials for patients at Barts Health NHS Trust. The Centre specialises in innovative, biomarker-driven trial designs, including adaptive studies and perioperative trials using serial biopsies. Its focus is on translating preclinical research into the clinic and using carefully designed trials to deepen understanding of new treatments.
The Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine (CECM) is part of Barts ECMC, a network that assists in the delivery of early-phase cancer studies across the UK. The team comprises of an academically led Trials Team responsible for the development and management of investigator-led and academically sponsored clinical trials, as well as a Cancer Research Delivery Group (CRDG) responsible for the recruitment and clinical management of Barts Health NHS Trust patients participating in clinical trials.
The CECM has strength in clinical implementation utilising innovative trial designs, such as biomarker-driven clinical trials with multi-arm adaptive design or using serial pre-treatment and on-treatment biopsies in the perioperative setting. Includes a substantial track record of biomarker-guided neoadjuvant or window-of-opportunity trials in many cancers, including breast and urological cancers.
The Centre’s vision and strategic priorities include:
The Trials Team provides a robust infrastructure to support investigators with clinical trial conduct, with a dedicated team including research pharmacists, QA team, statisticians, coordinators, monitors, biospecimen assistants and database programmers. Proposals are developed from an initial idea, through funding application, trial initiation and set-up, to trial completion and data analysis. Our team specialises in early phase trials (Ib/IIa), using biomarker driven designs with strong expertise in immunotherapy.
The team currently supports a broad portfolio of clinical research that includes a range of modalities and disease sites. The portfolio includes over 30 early phase clinical trials with a focus in breast and urological cancers as well as cancers of unmet need such as pancreatic cancer. The portfolio is balanced across early and metastatic settings.
Our trials are being conducted in over 120 hospitals in the UK, USA, Europe and Asia. Since it’s conception, Barts CECM has successfully delivered on the setup, management and analysis of a total of over 70 investigator-initiated trials. Most trials have an extensive associated translational research programme with a specific focus on circulating biomarkers.
More information about our clinical trial portfolio can be found on the clinical trials pages.
If you have an idea for a trial that you would like to develop with our Trials Team, please contact the team at BartsECMC@qmul.ac.uk prior to the funding application being submitted.
The CRDG is predominantly based at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and is responsible for offering more than 200 oncology clinical trials to Barts Health NHS patients across all tumour groups, with strong expertise in novel experimental drug treatments in both solid tumours and haemato-oncology.
The CECM trials team at Queen Mary University of London currenly sponsor and run a portfolio of over 30 early phase clinical trials, with a focus in breast and urological cancers as well as cancers of unmet need such as lung and pancreatic cancer.
We believe research works best when it reflects the needs and experiences of the people it is designed to help. The Barts ECMC runs a Public-Patient Involvement & Engagement (PPIE) group consisting of patients and healthcare professionals whose role is to promote public and patient involvement and engagement with cancer research at Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University of London.
Centre Lead
Deputy Centre Lead
Barts Cancer Institute
Old Anatomy Building,
Charterhouse Square,
London EC1M 6BQ
Barts Cancer Centre
St Bartholomew’s Hospital
West Smithfield
London EC1A 7BE
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