Prof Rebecca Fitzgerald
Principal Investigator
University of Cambridge
Rebecca is a clinician scientist and holds a personal chair in Cancer Prevention at the University of Cambridge. She is an MRC Programme Leader at the MRC Cancer Unit where she has developed the Cytosponge and biomarkers from inception through to clinical trial. She leads the Cambridge Early Detection Programme as part of the CRUK funded International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED) for which development and translation of diagnostics is a priority and involves collaborations across social sciences to consider public and societal aspects for early detection of cancer. For project DELTA Rebecca leads the grant and Work Package 2.
Dr Marcel Gehrung
Co-Investigator
Cyted
Marcel is a researcher working on AI in healthcare with a track record of software-based technology commercialisation. He is a founding member and CEO of the spin-out company Cyted, a new Early Detection company providing quality assured processing of Cytosponge with AI solutions for economic high throughput.
Dr Alison Hall
Co-Investigator
PHG Foundation
Alison leads ethical, legal and regulatory analysis at the PHG Foundation, a non-profit think tank which aims to progress and implement strategic change within health systems to drive forward the translation of biomedical advances into practical benefits.
Prof Julia Hippisley-Cox
Co-Investigator
University of Oxford
Julia is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology & General Practice at the University of Oxford and conducts large scale clinical epidemiology. Julia has a longstanding interest and expertise in drug safety and the development of risk prediction algorithms using electronic databases from general practices. She is the co-founder of the QResearch database (www.qresearch.org) which is one of the largest clinical research databases worldwide.
Prof Steve Morris
Co-Investigator
University of Cambridge
Steve is RAND Professor of Health Services Research and Deputy Director of the Primary Care Unit, Institute of Public Health at the University of Cambridge and his research focuses on determinants of health service use, including health care resource allocation formulae and inequality in health service use. Steve is performing the health economic evaluation of the BEST3 Cytosponge trial.
Dr Maria O’Donovan
Co-Investigator
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Maria is the lead for Upper GI at Cambridge University Hospitals including for cytopathology. Maria developed the cell processing and reporting methods for Cytosponge since its inception. Maria has been the pathology lead for Cytosponge across all three BEST clinical trials comprising >3,000 patients. She has also developed training modules for staff in the centralised laboratory to ensure QC standards.
Prof Peter Sasieni
Co-Investigator
King's College London
Peter is Academic Director of the King’s Clinical Trials Unit and Cancer Research UK & King’s College London Cancer Prevention Trials Unit. He is an expert in cancer prevention, clinical trials and cancer screening. Peter is a longstanding collaborator with the Fitzgerald team for research on the Cytosponge. Peter has designed the BEST2 and BEST3 trials and led the statistical analyses. He has led on cervical cancer screening trials and policy and thus has a broad understanding of the issues surrounding implementation of a diagnostic test for the early detection of cancer.
Dr Jo Waller
Co-Investigator
King's College London
Jo is team leader within the Cancer Prevention Group at King’s College London and a health psychologist who has worked in the field of cancer behavioural science for 20 years. Jo combines qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches to understanding knowledge, attitudes, behaviour and psychological impact across various cancer screening and early diagnosis contexts.
Prof Fiona Walter
Co-Investigator
Queen Mary University London
Fiona is Director of the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, and Professor of Primary Care Cancer Research. Fiona's role as Director means she is responsible for the strategic leadership of the Institute’s research and education. Fiona led qualitative studies on acceptability of Cytosponge in BEST3. Fiona has a particular interest in patient experiences and qualitative and mixed methods approaches and is co-lead for the CanTest Collaborative focussing on the transformative implementation in primary care of tests to support early detection of cancer.
Mr James Wood
Co-Investigator
Medtronic
James is Business Unit Manager, Gastrointestinal & Hepatology Division at Medtronic. Medtronic produce the CE-marked and FDA-approved cell collection device Cytosponge.