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Current PhD Studentships

Please find information regarding studentships for Autumn 2023 below.

MRC Clinical Trials Unit Funded Studentships

Up to three UKRI-funded PhD studentships (full time over 3 years, starting up until Autumn 2023) based at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, are also available for successful applicants. For more information, including how to make informal enquiries and submit applications please see the individual project information:

Exploring methods for borrowing evidence across baskets or subgroups in a clinical trial

What is the Project?

Basket designs are an innovative trial design used increasingly often in cancer trials to evaluate targeted therapies on related cancers in multiple locations. A basket trial is designed to study multiple patient subgroups (baskets): a single treatment is delivered to subgroups of patients with the same disease, aiming to draw conclusions about effectiveness within rather than across subgroups. Borrowing evidence across baskets can be beneficial in enabling conclusions to be drawn about effective treatments in rare diseases or small patient populations which could not be studied in a standalone clinical trial. The aim of this project is to explore methods for borrowing evidence across baskets or subgroups in a clinical trial, in order to provide guidance and recommendations for practice.

The project will address the following research questions:

When should we borrow evidence?

This decision is influenced by sizes and numbers of baskets, expected similarity of treatment effects across baskets, importance of drawing separate conclusions for each basket, acceptability of borrowing methods to investigators and stakeholders. Simulations will be carried out to explore how much information would be borrowed under varying scenarios. Acceptability of borrowing methods will be explored through a survey of clinical investigators. This work will be informed by three MRC Clinical Trials Unit-run trials that are borrowing evidence.

Where should we borrow evidence from?

Evidence could potentially be borrowed from one other basket, multiple baskets or external data. We will review existing models and propose new models for borrowing from relevant sources.

How should we choose the degree of borrowing?

The degree of borrowing can be informed by external evidence, opinion, a combination of evidence and opinion, additional evidence within the trial such as biomarkers, or learned from the trial data. A literature review will be carried out and we will review the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

How should we assess our approach to borrowing evidence?

We will explore whether existing methods for exploring prior/data conflict are directly applicable for use in basket trial settings and whether additional work is required to make the methods more accessible for use in practice. Sensitivity analyses will be carried out in example data sets, to explore how robust the conclusions are.

How should basket trials be designed when we intend to borrow evidence?

This work will draw on the findings obtained when addressing each of the above research questions and will investigate how to take into account the planned analysis in the trial design. Simulations will be carried out to explore the potential gains from increasing basket sizes under example scenarios.

Eligibility

Candidates should hold, or expect to achieve, an undergraduate degree in mathematics/statistics (upper second-class or first-class) and a Masters degree in statistics.

How to apply & additional information

Who are the supervisors?

The supervisory team is Dr Becky Turner and Professor Ian White.  You will also be supported by a Thesis Committee (TC), which will provide degree-spanning support and advice about academic and training progress for the successful candidate over the course of the Doctoral study.

When can I start?

Successful candidates are expected to commence studies no later than October 2023.

What funding is available?

What funding is available? A full-time studentship in line with the current UKRI PhD studentship levels, including home (UK) student fees and stipend.  Successful overseas candidates may also be eligible for top-up funding to cover overseas student fees.

How do I apply?

Interested candidates should contact Becky Turner (email: becky.turner@ucl.ac.uk) in the first instance for further information.

Applications by CV and covering letter should be sent to: ICTM.researchdegrees@ucl.ac.uk

Deadline for applications: 14 March 2023

Developing a Core Outcome Set for trials in the treatment of severe malaria

What is the Project?

Malaria is one of the most important parasitic infectious diseases worldwide. Severe or complicated malaria is the most life-threatening and potentially fatal manifestation of the disease and most cases will develop severe neurological deficit or death in the absence of prompt and effective management. Despite the scale-up of effective antimalarials, mortality rates from severe malaria remain significantly high; thus, numerous trials are investigating both antimalarials and adjunctive therapy.

A critical component in measuring and evaluating antimalarial or adjunctive treatment efficacy is the selection of appropriate outcomes for the RCTs. However, to date there is no agreed uniform method to assess the efficacy of antimalarials or adjunctive treatments and no conclusive analysis of outcomes being used in this area has been published. A systematic review published in August 2022 showed a large amount of heterogeneity with 101 different outcome measures reported in 27 trials between 2010-2020. 

A standardized minimum set of outcomes, known as a Core Outcome Set (COS), would help define clinically meaningful outcomes for the treatment of severe malaria, facilitate transparency and reduce outcome reporting bias, whilst enhancing the credibility and validity of future trials. It could also enable more meta-analysis of trials in this area and support development of evidence-based treatment guidelines.

Main research objective: to develop a core outcome set for trials in treatment of severe malaria.

To update a systematic review undertaken in 2020 looking for any additional published or registered trials in severe malaria. Severe malaria has a varied clinical presentation including several complications, that require a range of targeted adjunctive treatments which poses a challenge to standardising outcomes. Each complication of severe malaria may need its own primary core outcome for any phase II trials and this would need to be considered alongside an overarching core outcome set. Work following the review would look to group the outcomes into domains linked to the complications.

  • To undertake a review of outcome measurement instruments in this area following guidelines from COSMIN (Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments)
  • To develop a study protocol which would be registered on the COMET Initiative website or published to be publicly available. This would describe the scope, interventions, setting, methods and people and organisations involved.
  • To work with key stakeholders and experts to prioritise outcomes with a Delphi survey. This would include consideration of how to involve community groups linked to hospitals that treat children and adults for severe malaria in this process and in trial research.
  • To continue to work with the stakeholders and experts group to then achieve consensus as to the core set using semi structured group discussion or a consensus development conference/meeting.
  • To prepare an implementation plan to include both the intended audience and users of the COS and the pathways to reach them.  
  • To action some of the implementation plan through dissemination work with publications and visibility at conferences to ensure those designing and setting up severe malaria treatment trials use the newly developed COS.

Eligibility

The student would be expected to have a medical or life sciences degree (first or upper second) and a relevant master’s degree, or the international equivalent.

How to apply & additional information

Who are the supervisors?

The supervisory team is Dr Elizabeth George, Dr Sharon Love and Professor Di Gibb and Dr Kathryn Maitland.  You will also be supported by a Thesis Committee (TC), which will provide degree-spanning support and advice about academic and training progress for the successful candidate over the course of the Doctoral study.

When can I start?

Successful candidates are expected to commence studies in no later than October 2023.

What funding is available?

What funding is available? A full-time studentship in line with the current UKRI PhD studentship levels, including home (UK) student fees and stipend.  Successful overseas candidates may also be eligible for top-up funding to cover overseas student fees.

How do I apply?

Interested candidates should contact Elizabeth George (email: Elizabeth.george@ucl.ac.uk) in the first instance for further information.

Applications by CV and covering letter should be sent to: ICTM.researchdegrees@ucl.ac.uk

Deadline for applications: 14 March 2023.

Utilising Healthcare Systems Data (HSD) to improve the efficiency of following-up participants within clinical trials

What is the Project?

Clinical trials underpin evidence-based medicine but are often long-term endeavours and expensive. Routinely collected healthcare systems data (HSD) could potentially improve the efficiency, and reduce the costs, of clinical trials. A key challenge for many trials is the long-term follow-up of participants to allow a complete evaluation of the intervention. This is particularly pertinent to repurposed medications being evaluated both in the adjuvant setting and for primary prevention in large, modestly funded academic trials.

The Add-Aspirin protocol (ISRCTN:74358648) encompasses 4 large adjuvant trials in 4 common tumour types evaluating the use of aspirin after radical treatment for early-stage cancers. The primary outcome includes an assessment of overall survival (encompassing the effect on the original tumour, the potential prevention of second cancers and cardiovascular benefits) 15 years post-randomisation for the whole cohort. At the onset of the trial it had been envisaged that after 5 years of site-based follow-up HSD could be employed to complete the follow-up. However, a preliminary unpublished analysis comparing trial data obtained through conventional case report forms with data derived from several HSD sources has concluded that at the present time ongoing site-based follow-up is still required beyond the initial 5 years. This has put increased burden on sites and highlights the need for further work in this area.

What the studentship will encompass:

1. An in-depth comparison between the data currently collected within the Add-Aspirin trial (~ 10,000 participants) with HSD to understand the similarities and differences, accuracy, completeness, and type of data that can be collected through HSD currently (and potentially in the future).

2. The Add-Aspirin trial involves 4 common tumour types and therefore provides an opportunity to define a framework and provide information to other trial groups about what information is currently available and how it can be employed within future and ongoing adjuvant studies with a particular focus on the tumour types involved in Add-Aspirin.

3. The student will also work with the MRC CTU team currently developing a new large primary prevention trial HATTRICK across multiple disease-areas (cancer, cardiovascular and neurology). HSD will be central to the follow-up of participants over several decades within this trial. The student will work with the trial team to develop and establish the role of HSD within this project. 

Eligibility

The student would be expected to have a life sciences degree (first or upper second) and a relevant master’s degree, or the international equivalent. 

How to apply & additional information

Who are the supervisors?

The primary supervisor will be Prof Ruth Langley who is the Chief Investigator of the Add-Aspirin trial. The secondary supervisors will be Dr Angela Meade, Add-Aspirin project lead, with statistical support from Matthew Nankivell (senior statistician).  You will also be supported by a Thesis Committee (TC), which will provide degree-spanning support and advice about academic and training progress for the successful candidate over the course of the Doctoral study.

When can I start?

Successful candidates are expected to commence studies no later than October 2023.

What funding is available?

What funding is available? A full-time studentship in line with the current UKRI PhD studentship levels, including home (UK) student fees and stipend.  Successful overseas candidates may also be eligible for top-up funding to cover overseas student fees.

How do I apply?

Interested candidates should contact Ruth Langely or Angela Meade (email: angela.meade@ucl.ac.uk or ruth.langley@ucl.ac.uk) in the first instance for further information.

Applications by CV and covering letter should be sent to: ICTM.researchdegrees@ucl.ac.uk

Deadline for applications: 14 March 2023.

Platform trials

What is the Project?

Platform trials have more than one primary aim and an adaptive element, such that one trial can be quite big and can go on for, say, 10 years. There are several questions to be answered about these trials.

What the studentship will encompass?

1. When to close a platform trial?

In a platform protocol, recruitment to new arms can be opened and older arms can be closed to recruitment and, later, closed completely. Issues and changes accumulate over time in any trial and this may be felt more acutely in a protocol with multiple arms opened and closed. What indicates that it would be “better” to finally start a new trial rather than add an arm to the current trial? No previous work has been done to guide researchers in this difficult decisions. The methods will be a mixture of interviews (e.g. of those who have closed a platform trial and those who have led long-running platform trials), surveys (of those running platform trials) and quantifying the pros and cons of keeping a trial open and starting a new trial on all aspects of trial conduct and analysis.

2. Qualitative study to understand the impact on site staff of platform trials

We would like to improve our understanding of the impact on site staff of; there are anecdotal reports of trial fatigue at sites, but it is unclear whether this is any greater or less than working on multiple traditional trials. Site staff are usually working at hospitals, are not funded from the trial and often work on several trials. This work leads on from an earlier paper https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3377-5 on the impact of platform trials on clinical trials unit staff. This would involve interviews of site staff.

3. How do the platform trial paper recommendations fit international trials?

We published a paper https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-022-06680-4 with recommendations about how to run a platform trial. This was based on a meeting in Mar2020 where we discussed the experience of staff from 6 registered CTU in the UK who were running platform trials. Now we need to consider the covid trial and international trials and see if there is anything to add.

trials underpin evidence-based medicine but are often long-term endeavours and expensive. Routinely collected healthcare systems data (HSD) could potentially improve the efficiency, and reduce the costs, of clinical trials. A key challenge for many trials is the long-term follow-up of participants to allow a complete evaluation of the intervention. This is particularly pertinent to repurposed medications being evaluated both in the adjuvant setting and for primary prevention in large, modestly funded academic trials.

Eligibility

The student would be expected to have a life sciences degree (first or upper second) and a relevant master’s degree, or the international equivalent.

How to apply & additional information

Who are the supervisors?

Professor Matthew Sydes will be primary supervisor. He has many years of Trial Conduct Methodology research experience with a particular interest in platform trials Sharon Love and Talia Isaacs are the secondary supervisors.  You will also be supported by a thesis committee

When can I start?

Successful candidates are expected to commence studies no later than October 2023.

What funding is available?

What funding is available? A full-time studentship in line with the current UKRI PhD studentship levels, including home (UK) student fees and stipend.  Successful overseas candidates may also be eligible for top-up funding to cover overseas student fees.

How do I apply?

Interested candidates should contact Matt Sydes or Sharon Love (email: matthew.sydes@ucl.ac.uk or  sharon.love@ucl.ac.uk) in the first instance for further information.

Applications by CV and covering letter should be sent to: ICTM.researchdegrees@ucl.ac.uk

Deadline for applications: 14 March 2023.