CTRad is 10! Top-10 achievements revealed

  • This year CTRad is celebrating its ten-year anniversary! Read the announcement on NCRI’s website here: bit.ly/NCRIcelebratesCTRad10
  • To celebrate 10 years of NCRI’s flagship initiative CTRad, we revealed CTRad’s top 10 achievements to mark its contribution to radiotherapy research in the UK. Check them out at the following website together with case studies, blogs and quotes to celebrate the people behind this initiative and the progress made through collaborative working: ctrad.ncri.org.uk/achievements
  • You can also find all the tweets relating to the activities with the hashtag #10yearsCTRad

Leadership transition and rotations

  • At the April Executive Group face-to-face meeting in London, Anthony Chalmers passed on the CTRad Chairmanship to David Sebag-Montefiore, and Mererid Evans also officially took up the role of Deputy Chair of CTRad. We are thankful for the time and effort Anthony has put into the role, and CTRad has achieved a great amount under his leadership. To mark the Chairmanship transition, you can read a NCRI’s 60-second interview with David here: bit.ly/CTRad60SecDSM
  • In terms of WS co-chair rotations, Yat Man Tsang (Mount Vernon Cancer Centre) has been appointed as co-chair of WS3 after the latest competitive recruitment process; we are thankful to Emma Hall for her contribution as the WS3 methodology co-chair over the past 6 years. Sarah Brown (Leeds) has also recently taken on the role of WS2 co-chair following return from maternity leave; we are very grateful to Ananya Choudhury who kindly agreed to act as interim WS2 co-chair for the first half of this year.
  • We would also like to welcome our new consumer members who came on board from earlier this year: Tim Humphrey (WS1), Catharine Raitt (WS1), Tim Ward (WS2), Debbie Keatley (WS3), Richard Stephens (WS3 and Exec Group) and Julie Wolfarth (WS4).
  • The latest list of workstream co-chairs and members can be found on the CTRad website ctrad.ncri.org.uk/about-ctrad/leadership-and-members.

CTRad PBT clinical trials development workshop, February 2019

  • A well-attended two-day PBT clinical trials development workshop took place 28 February–1 March at the Christie Hospital, Manchester. It was organised by Karen Kirkby, Zoe Lingard and Neil Burnet, and aimed at helping research teams develop existing PBT trial ideas.
  • The workshop started with plenary talks including topics relating to PBT treatment planning, the use of image guidance, and PBT treatment from a radiographer’s perspective. Participants then spent the rest of their time working in disease-specific breakout groups with experts such as PBT planning physicists, RTTQA, methodologists, consumers, clinical trial unit representatives and health economist, who helped with developing the programme of work needed to deliver the final trial funding application. Each group was also supported by medical physicists, radiographers and clinical site leads from The Christie Hospital and UCLH.
  • The second day started with presentations from each trial, to gain feedback from the wider group, followed by a further development breakout session. The workshop concluded with a tour of the new PBT Centre.
  • Seven proposals were discussed during the breakout sessions and they are for a variety of disease sites which will be suited to different funders. CTRad is continuing discussions with a range of funders in navigating the challenging funding landscape.

CTRad Proposals meeting and Anniversary Symposium, June 2019

  • CTRad held its biannual Proposals Guidance meeting in June, and as part of the 10-year celebrations, there was also a 10-year anniversary symposium on the same day.
  • In the morning during the Proposals Guidance meeting, Marc Modat (King’s College London) and Liz Miles (RTTQA) introduced the newly developed RTTQA Data Upload platform, which is a tool for easy data transfer for clinical research and clinical trials; it is currently being tested by a few sites. Delegates then broke into three breakout groups to discuss a total of 9 proposals to provide investigators with expert feedback on their trial proposal ideas.
  • The afternoon saw a celebration with CTRad’s 10-year Anniversary Symposium. David Sebag-Montefiore opened the Symposium by revealing the top item of CTRad’s Top 10 achievements – development of a broad portfolio of radiotherapy trials. Four invited speakers then took turns to share their perspective on CTRad’s influence on various aspects of radiotherapy research in the past 10 years.
  • Tim Maughan, founding Chair of CTRad, took to the podium to give the audience a slice of the radiotherapy research landscape history prior to CTRad, and how CTRad was setup by the NCRI Partners.
  • Iain Frame, CEO of NCRI, then talked about CTRad as NCRI’s flagship initiative and how CTRad influenced the RT funding landscape, how its strategy and goals can be linked with the Living with and Beyond Cancer initiative.
  • Helen Bulbeck, one of the very first consumer members to be appointed on CTRad, talked about how the CTRad consumers were developed as a new community and their achievements over the past 10 years, and some thoughts for the next ten years of CTRad.
  • Mererid Evans, Deputy Chair of CTRad, described how she was encouraged and inspired through the CTRad proposals process to successfully developing her own trial, and outlined the importance of developing a multidisciplinary, collaborative academic RT workforce which is one of CTRad’s five Strategic Visions.
  • After this, the delegates went into four breakout groups to discuss CTRad’s unique selling point (USP), CTRad’s Strategic Vision areas and structure, which will help shape CTRad’s strategy post-2021.
  • In the last session, three past Chairs of CTRad – Tim Maughan (2009-2010), Neil Burnet (2013-2016) and Anthony Chalmers (2016-2019) – were invited onto the stage to share the highs and lows during their time as Chair. We would also like to thank Tim Illidge (2010-2013) who was unable to attend the meeting in person.
  • The Symposium closed with a well-coordinated Mexican Wave delivered through great audience participation! The day closed with a celebratory drinks reception, which everyone enjoyed.
  • We are very grateful to the STFC Advanced Radiotherapy Network+ and EPSRC Network for supporting this meeting.
  • The next CTRad proposals guidance meeting will be held on 2 December and more details will be posted on the CTRad website.