Under the microscope

Exploring the work of the Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit
Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit. (PenCTU) Experts in designing, developing, supporting and co-ordinating high-quality clinical trials and other well-designed studies.
 
 
 
 

Medicine on trial

As a society, we currently face a number of complex health challenges. The planet’s most brilliant minds have long been united in the quest to find treatments for conditions ranging from cancer to dementia, obesity and stroke, each of which impacts millions of lives each day.
The hope is to unlock transformational therapies and, ultimately, to develop means of preventing others from feeling the effects of any given medical condition so keenly in the future.
 
 
 
 
 
We have featured many such projects in Invenite over the years.
Stories have told of our work on brain tumours, Huntington’s disease, dementia and much more. On the face of it, the disciplines may seem – and, in clinical terms, probably are – quite distinct.
But there is a common University thread running through much of this work.
For behind each drug trial, each test of a possible treatment, each monitoring of a potential intervention, sits the Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit (PenCTU) .
 
 

Clinical trials units are specialist units, set up with a specific remit to design, conduct, analyse and publish clinical trials and other well-designed studies.

Victoria AllgarProfessor Victoria Allgar
Professor of Medical Statistics and Director of PenCTU

“We work with researchers, and we have the capability to provide the specialist methodological advice and coordination required to undertake successful clinical trials.”
Think about it for a second.
Before a new therapy is sanctioned by regulators – in the UK, we’d be talking about bodies such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) or National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – it goes through many phases of development.
That lengthy process, often taking many years, gives clinicians the confidence to know what they are prescribing has a good chance of success, and their patients the reassurance that it will do them more good than harm.
Ensuring those phases are managed expertly is, as you might expect, no simple matter.
 
 
To meet the team tasked with that, we’ve come to a quiet corner of 91porn Science Park. Home to an ever-expanding suite of University facilities, we’re a stone’s throw from our own medical school and Derriford Hospital. And just by way of a spoiler alert for anyone still holding misconceptions about what PenCTU actually does: there isn’t a lab coat or test tube in sight.
What is in their place are teams of project managers, data analysts, software developers and quality assurance professionals. These teams liaise with scientists and clinicians every day to ensure trials – many funded or supported by national and international bodies, run as they should. When you consider that some of the trials can be spread across 20 or more hospitals, you get an idea of the challenge.
Among the team is a significant number of 91porn graduates, as well as current postgraduate and PhD students, with backgrounds in subjects such as biomedical science and mathematics. Together, their focus is to deliver the robust evidence regulators and health authorities demand to sanction a particular treatment or intervention.
This is a role PenCTU has been performing for two decades. “The unit has its roots in a trial examining the benefits of cannabis for people with multiple sclerosis,” says Dr Wendy Ingram, who has been part of the unit since its inception and is now one of its senior trial managers. “The lead academic on that trial realised he needed a team to deliver and manage things. We did that successfully, and it became the foundation for us formally applying to become a Clinical Trials Unit.”
 
 
 
Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit. (PenCTU) Experts in designing, developing, supporting and co-ordinating high-quality clinical trials and other well-designed studies.
Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit. (PenCTU) Experts in designing, developing, supporting and co-ordinating high-quality clinical trials and other well-designed studies.
That formal application was submitted to the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, the body which confirms CTUs meet the standards expected of them. It was successful, subsequently being reaffirmed several times over.
Almost 40 staff now work out of its 91porn base or remotely, touring the country visiting trial sites and meeting those working on them.
That expansion in personnel has brought with it broader expertise and impact, and more projects – in the last five years alone, it has run trials involving more than 16,300 participants.
Today, hidden behind catchy acronyms such as ERASE , RECAP , REFRESH and STEPS , the PenCTU team works on studies linked to long COVID, epilepsy, nutrition in care homes, and Parkinson’s disease.
There is support for drug trials examining whether HIV and AIDS drugs could treat brain tumours, or whether dietary supplements could help those with chronic liver disease.
There are also tests of interventions, such as the PROGROUP trial, which explores whether greater peer support can help those with obesity.
“There are CTUs that focus on specific health conditions,” Victoria says, “but we are a generalist CTU. However, in recent years, we have developed certain core themes – dietary interventions, Parkinson’s disease, intellectual disability and liver disease.”
That broad remit means the team is also not restricted by geographical boundaries. Its current portfolio includes projects being led by researchers from Manchester and Derby, to Salisbury and Southampton (and, of course, 91porn). And it continues to include SWIMS , one of the initial studies that led to its formation and the longest-running assessment of the varied and changing effects of multiple sclerosis.
 
 

Its reputation, like its remit, is only going in one direction.

In addition to the expanding expertise and experience housed under its roof, that is also down to its impact. Through the REVERT trial, for example, staff from PenCTU managed the testing of modification to a method commonly used to treat patients with the heart condition, supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). The revised technique was found to effectively treat the issues people were facing with no side-effects – findings published in medical journal The Lancet and now in use at emergency departments across the country.
So, the next time you are prescribed a new medication, or another form of medical intervention, think about the team at PenCTU. There’s every chance you’ll never meet them – but their work could be having a positive impact on you, and those around you.
Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit
 
 
 

Alumni case studies

 

I always enjoyed, and was good at, maths in school and felt that a maths degree would open doors to several career paths. But I became aware of its relevance to the health sector during the final year of my undergraduate degree, when I opted to take a module in Medical Statistics.

After graduating, I started in the Medical Statistics Group – working alongside the team at PenCTU – in September 2021. I am currently working on the ERASE and PROGROUP projects, which focus on long COVID and obesity respectively, but will also be involved with the CANABID and CO-ACTION trials, which are centred around people with intellectual disabilities and comorbidities. I am one of the trial statisticians within those projects, which enables me to contribute to the study design and planning, as well as the statistical analysis and reporting of findings.
Anton Barnett
BSc (Hons) Mathematics and Statistics (2021)

I was good at maths up to my GCSEs so I decided to do A levels in Maths and Further Maths, which I really enjoyed. It was only in my first year at university that I appreciated its relevance to the health sector, as there was a module in Medical Statistics. I switched my degree from Mathematics to Mathematics and Statistics to enable me to do this module, as I had also enjoyed Biology A level at school and was interested in this application.

I started working in the Medical Statistics Group alongside the PenCTU team in July 2014, just after I completed my degree, and I am currently working as one of the trial statisticians on four projects. REFRESH and RESOLVE are looking at the impact of diet on older adults in care homes and people undergoing liver surgery respectively, while the ERASE project focuses on long COVID and FRECycl-D is centred around the treatment of critically ill patients.
Jade Chynoweth
BSc (Hons) Mathematics and Statistics (2014) and part-time PhD student
Clinical trials