Sir Bobby Robson Foundation Team
Sir Bobby Robson Foundation Cancer Trials Design Team

The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation has provided funding to Newcastle Clinical Trials Unit, for a cancer trials team. The Foundation is a fund within the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Charity that aims to find more effective ways to detect and treat cancer. The new team will work with investigators to design and develop trials whose findings will benefit patients with cancer in the region, nationally and internationally.
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation Clinical Trials Design Team, funded by a £433,838 grant, will help answer important questions about cancer by ensuring research is designed in the best way possible. Find out more about the Clinical Trials Design Team
This exciting news has resulted in a TV interview and a number of online articles, links to these can be found below:
Meet the Team
Rebecca Maier - Deputy Lead of CTU (Project Lead)
James Wason - Professor of Biostatistics (Project Lead)
Helen Hancock - Director of CTU
Natasha Newell - Design Team Methodologist
Svetlana Cherlin - Design Team Biostatistician
Mark Walker - Director of CRF
How/when to contact us
We would recommend that you contact the team early so that we are able to help you think through the research questions, aims of the research, methodology and outcomes of the study. We will work with you on all aspects of your research proposal including:
- design
- research methodology
- identifying suitable sources of funding
- involving patients and public
Please contact: SBRF.NCTU@newcastle.ac.uk
What to expect
When you contact the design team we will arrange to meet with you; this meeting will usualy be face to face. During this meeting we will discuss your research ideas and plans. We can also discuss the possibility of collaboration to enable delivery of the trial.
Current NCTU Trials in Patients with Cancer
PROACT: Can we prevent Chemotherapy-related Heart Damage in Patients with Breast Cancer?
CI: Dr David Austin
VARIANT: A multicentre randomised feasibility trial of implementing a biomarker-guided personalised treatment in patients with advanced prostate cancer
CI: Dr Rakesh Heer
Publications
- Developing and testing high-efficacy patient subgroups within a clinical trial using risk scores - Statistics in Medicine, 39(24): 3285-3298