LOCATION

Botnar Research Centre, Old Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7LD

I joined SITU as Clinical Trial Manager for DISCUS in January 2021. DISCUS is a randomised controlled trial for traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) set in trauma/emergency units. It compares surgery including laminectomy plus duroplasty (intervention) to surgery including laminectomy, with an integrated QuinteT Recruitment Intervention (QRI). DISCUS has a mechanistic laboratory substudy investigating mechanism.  DISCUS aims to recruit 222-260 participants (UK-international).

Prior to DISCUS, I worked in trial management positions in multicentre surgery randomised controlled trials (RCTs) (breast surgery, orthopaedic, urology), paediatric RCTs (ophthalmology, chronic fatigue) and drug trial (CTIMP- immunotherapy for Diabetes Type 1) – supported by UKCRC registered trial units in Swansea and in Bristol.  My last position was a senior research associate/trial manager post to set up and recruit for a breast surgery trial and I coordinated a public health paediatric ophthalmology feasibility study set in schools (at University of Bristol). Previous to this, I held trial management/research projects manager positions in Bristol Randomised Trials Collaboration (BRTC- now BTC), the NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (BNSSG CCG) and Cardiff University.

My interest in translational clinical research and trials stems from my earlier career as an academic researcher working on drugs in autoimmune disease and cancer in the laboratory. I hold a BSc from University of California at Berkeley in Molecular Cell Biology and a PhD in immunology from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas in USA.