Key People

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Interim Director of ECTU;

Professor of Medical Statistics;  0131 651 9956; steff.lewis@ed.ac.uk

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Steff Lewis is a medical statistician with an MSc and a PhD in medical statistics.  She has extensive experience in meta-analysis (including involvement in the Cochrane Collaboration) and randomised trials.  She was deputy chair of the UK-CRC registered Trials Units Statistics Subgroup until 2019, and was on the UK-CRC Task and Finish Group on data sharing.  She manages the statistics group in the UK-CRC registered Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit.  Steff is an independent expert on the Data Monitoring Committees of several randomised trials, and has extensive experience in the design, conduct and analysis of trials in a range of clinical areas.  She has experience of funding committees, in particular NIHR HTA and CSO.

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Clinical Director & Professor of Clinical Neurology;

0131 465 9618; Rustam.Al-Shahi@ed.ac.uk

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I am a professor of clinical neurology at The University of Edinburgh and an honorary consultant neurologist in NHS Lothian. As ECTU clinical director, I represent chief investigators and work alongside the Director and Chief Operating Officer to implement the clinical trials strategy. I also chair the University’s Clinical Trials Oversight Group and I am clinical director of the UKCRC CTU network. I lead the Research to Understand Stroke due to Haemorrhage (RUSH) programme, which is dedicated to improving the outcome for adults who have diseases that may cause, or have caused, intracranial hemorrhage by evaluating interventions in randomised controlled trials.  My clinical practice includes the care of patients with any type of stroke and other neurological diseases. I am concerned about Increasing Value and Reducing Waste in Research and improving the environmental sustainability of clinical trials.

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Chief Operating Officer; 0131 651 9982; joyce.thomson@ed.ac.uk

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Reporting to the Director, Joyce is responsible for the overall running and strategic management of ECTU. This involves having oversight of HR, finance, operational and planning functions.  Joyce is closely involved in assessing and developing research grant proposals, working with the trial execution and methodology teams on the operational planning and costing of future studies.  She represents ECTU on the various management committees within the Deanery, Institute and College.  

Having over 25 years’ experience within Operations, Joyce has worked in a variety of industries and roles and has been involved with clinical trials for the past decade. Her background is in Chemistry and she has a Masters degree in Business Administration.

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Trial Team Manager (Operational); 0131 651 9911; gina.cranswick@ed.ac.uk

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My background is in managing large, international, pragmatic, academic trials. My role is Trial Team Manager for the Operations team within ECTU. This 15 strong team is made up of Trial managers, assistant TMs, support officers and data management. I am responsible for overseeing the trial within our portfolio including CTIMPS, NON CTIMPs, device trials and observational studies within a range of disease conditions including GI, rheumatology, neurology, paediatrics, cardiology and critical care. Part of my role is to provide research design advice to researchers for potential new studies. I am also a founder member on the faculty of the Edinburgh Clinical Trials Management Course.

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Data Management and Programming Team Lead; 

0131 651 9932; Kenton.D'Mellow@ed.ac.uk

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Leads a team that develops and manages data collection and management systems for clinical trials and other types of clinical research.

Pamela Sinclair

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Business Team Lead; 0131 651 9902; pamela.sinclair@ed.ac.uk

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Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, is responsible for leading the Business Team and providing the business and administrative support function of ECTU ensuring that the operating requirements of all ECTU teams are met.  Contributes to the strategic development of ECTU and the delivery and development of the clinical trials pathway within Edinburgh.

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Senior Research Development Manager; 

0131 651 9974(BQ9); agnes.tello@ed.ac.uk

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As the lead of the ECTU Research Development Team, I work in partnership with Chief Investigators and colleagues across the University of Edinburgh and NHS to develop, design and deliver high-quality research proposals for randomised controlled trials and other clinical studies.

My research background is in genetics (MSc) and regenerative medicine (PhD). Most recently, I was the Senior Programme Manager for Early Cancer Diagnosis at the University of St Andrews.   

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Professor of Medical statistics and Clinical Trials; 0131 651 9957 (BQ9); christopher.weir@ed.ac.uk

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Experienced health services researcher and clinical trials methodologist, co-leading the statistical work of the Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit.  Role involves collaboration with clinical investigators to deliver high impact clinical trials and health research studies, alongside development of novel statistical clinical trials methodology to support current and future research.

Current Research Interests

• Adaptive design clinical trials
• Statistical methods for the evaluation of potential surrogate outcomes in clinical trials
• Design and analysis of cluster-randomised trials, including stepped-wedge designs