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Overview

Our Centre

University College London (UCL) ECMC is committed to performing world-class clinical cancer research to discover and develop new treatments and improve the outcome for patients. Our Centre integrates fundamental scientific advances with optimised patient care in high quality clinical research performed in a patient focused environment. Our Centre has expertise in the field of:

Immunotherapy

UCL has an extensive portfolio of cell based therapies including the most comprehensive CAR T-cell programme in Europe, encompassing a broad range portfolio of studies actively recruiting patients with B and T-cell malignancies, myeloma, HCC and neuroblastoma.

Solid tumours

Our Centre has a vast porfolio of solid tumour trials including GI cancers, head and neck cancers, melanoma, liver, HCC, neuroendocrine, lung and gynaecological cancers. We also have a portfolio of rare cancers studies (sarcomas) which includes teenage and young adult patients. Our current portfolio of studies brings in close collaboration with 37 pharmaceutical companies.

GCLP Facility

The UCL ECMC includes a fully accredited Good Clinical Laboratory Practice (GCLP) Facility supporting biomarker assay development and endpoint analysis for clinical trials to regulatory standards.

Click here to learn more about the GCLP Facility at UCL.

Our Patient Population

Our clinical research facility serves a local population of 6M.
Number of patients treated: 156

Organisations affiliated with the UCL ECMC:

Our location

UCL ECMC is situated in London with easy access to a number of major railway stations and airports.
By tube: Euston, Euston Square, King's Cross, Russell Square and Warren Street
By National Rail: Euston, King's Cross and St. Pancras International
Ey Eurostar: St. Pancras International (Eurostart terminal)
By air: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City Airport

Contact the Centre Manager:

Dominic Patel
dominic.patel@ucl.ac.uk

Address

UCL Cancer Institute
Paul O'Gorman Building
University College London
72 Huntley Street
London WC1E 6BT

Team Members

Dr Martin Forster

Adult Centre Co-Lead

Expertise:

Adult

martin.forster1@nhs.net

+44 (0) 20 3447 5085

Dr. Martin Forster is an Associate Professor at UCL and consultant medical oncologist at University College Hospital. He is the UCL ECMC Clinical Lead and UCLH Clinical Lead for Cancer Research. He specialises in thoracic and head and neck cancers and has a particular interest in drug development and in using the increasing understanding of cancer biology to design studies that distinguish patient populations most likely to gain benefit from new drugs and new drug combinations.

He is a core member of the lung and head and neck cancer teams and runs a research-based practice, being principal investigator or chief investigator for over 80 early and late-phase clinical trials, from first-in-human to registration Phase III trials. These include targeted therapies in precision oncology trials, novel immunotherapies, and more recently solid cancer cell therapy studies.

He collaborates broadly with national and international groups involved in translational research and is joint lead for the clinical trials theme of the Cancer Research UK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence and chairs the NIHR Head and Neck Research Group.

Professor John Hartley

Adult Centre Co-Lead

john.hartley@ucl.ac.uk

+44 (0) 207 679 6055

John Hartley is Professor of Cancer Studies in the UCL Cancer Institute, Co-Lead of the UCL Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and head of the UCL ECMC GCLP Facility. He is also Director of the Cancer Research UK Drug-DNA Interactions Research Group where his research activities are focused around the development of novel cancer therapies, particularly involving DNA as a target. He has been for many years the chair of the CRUK Protocol Safety and Review Board.

Dominic Patel

Centre Business Lead (and PPI Lead)

Expertise:

Adult

Dominic has been at UCL for almost 10 years now. Previously he worked as a Research scientist in the Research Department of Pathology before joining us in March 2022. His role involves closely working with the supported infrastructure, in particular the GCLP facility and the UCLH CRF, creating annual reports, keeping track of active clinical trials and working closely with the CRUK UCL CoL Centre Manger on PPI activities. He is also part of the ECMC Business Leads (CBL) Forum and leads on lab sustainability within the Cancer Institute.

Operational Team

Irfan Kayani

UCLH Consultant Radiologist

Irfan.kayani@nhs.net

Leah Ensell

Biobank Manager

l.ensell@ucl.ac.uk

Miguel Paz-Alvarez

UCLH CRF Portfolio Manager

miguel.paz-alvarez@nhs.net

Adoracion Jayme Laiche

UCLH CRF Deputy Lead Research Nurse

adoracion.jaymelaiche@nhs.net

Anika Macwan

RFH CRF Portfolio Manager

anika.macwan@nhs.net

Dr Helen Lowe

Facility Manager

h.lowe@ucl.ac.uk

Dr Victoria Spanswick

Study Manager

v.spanswick@ucl.ac.uk

Adult Expertise

Treatment Modalities

Immunotherapy

Small Molecules

Surgery

Facilities/Translational Research

Dedicated 24 hour stay facilities (including weekends)
Radiopharmacy
On-site pharmacy
PK testing facility
Biobanking facilities
Dedicated research staff i.e. research nurses, lab technicians
Snap freezing facilities i.e. liquid nitrogen
On-site ITU (intensive treatment unit)
On-site central lab

Cancer Types

Breast
Gynaecological
GI
Haematological
Sarcoma
Liver
Neuroendocrine
Pancreatic
Prostate
Lung
Melanoma
Cervical
Ovarian
Head and Neck

Drugs/Treatment Modalities

Advanced cellular therapies
Combination therapies
Immunotherapy
Small molecules
Surgery

Radiotherapy

We have regular access to proton radiotherapy

We have research expertise in the following:

Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT)
Image Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT)
4-Dimensional Radiotherapy (4DRT)
Stereotactic Radiotherapy (SBRT/SABRT)
Internal Radiotherapy
Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS)
Proton therapy

Molecular Diagnostic Testing

We have the following available on a routine basis to our patients:

Disease specific NGS panel testing (tumour and ctDNA)

Our average turnaround time for NGS for ctDNA is within 7-10 days and for NGS panel it is about 2-4 weeks. This does depend on the tumour site and currently NGS screening is only for selected tumour types and populations.

Paediatric Expertise

UCL/Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) is also a paediatric centre. GOSH and the teenage cancer unit at UCLH comprise a unified Principal Treatment Centre (PTC) for those diagnosed with cancer aged 0-19 yrs in North London, treating over 300 new patients a year.

Both units have an established infrastructure for running early phase trials linked to preclinical research at the Institute of Child Health and the UCL Cancer Institute, including dedicated Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs).

They have recruited 18 patients to ITCC trials, 16 patients to a CRUK-supported phase I trial of dendritic cell vaccination in osteosarcoma and have strong clinical leadership and substantial grant funding (>£1.3 million) for in-house early phase trials in immunotherapy.

There is a well-developed strategy to further enhance preclinical and early phase clinical trial research across the joint PTC. This includes the planned appointment in February 2011 of a new consultant with 50% of their time dedicated to experimental therapeutics.

This post will increase the trial portfolio available to the paediatric and adolescent age groups, through interfacing with the adult ECMC and the CRF at UCH and working directly with Professor Hilary Calvert, UCL Partners Director of Drug Discovery and Development. Both GOSH and UCLH have facilities to accommodate patients and families who need to travel to London.

Case Study

Case Studies

Clinical Impact- Advanced Therapy

UCL CAR T-cell programme - UCL/UCLH/GOSH continues to have the largest number of patients recruited to early phase academic gene-modified T Cell therapy trials in Europe. UCL ECMC supports the gene-modified T cell immunotherapy programmes at UCLH, RFH and Great Ormond Street Hospital (Prof Emma Morris, Prof Hans Stauss, Dr Martin Pule, Dr Claire Roddie). The ECMC-funded Immunotherapy Technician (Mahnaz Abbasian) leads the CAR T-cell manufacturing at the Royal Free facility. In the past 12 months she has manufactured 23 ATIMPS for patients recruited to the following trials;

9 ATIMPs for ALLCAR19 trial CD19 CAR T cells
5 ATIMPs for CRAD trial – CD19 CAR T cells for relapsed post-allogenic HSCT
3 ATIMPs for COBALT trial – CD19 CAR T cells as a bridge to transplant
6 ATIMPs for CARPALL trial – multicentre UK trial of CD19 CAR T cells

The expertise and infrastructure established for advanced therapy has enabled participation in commercial cell-therapy trials including the first in human ADP-0033-001 trial (Adaptimmune CI Prof Tim Meyer)

The immunotherapy technician has also trained new members of staff on;

Fundamentals of working in GMP environment: transfer of items to GMP laboratory; gowning; aseptic techniques in microbiology safety cabinet; environmental monitoring.
Manufacturing procedures: preparation of media and buffer; prodigy tubing set installation and other activities related to the prodigy; transduction, cryopreservation of leukapheresis and final ATIMP, thawing and culturing leukapheresis; automated cell count (Sysmex and Trucount).
QC and auditing: review batch manufacturing for ongoing products and prior QP release; auditing electronic databases (Electronic Research System for storing products in Biobank); auditing manufactured BMRs for HTA and MHRA inspections; auditing team members’ training records.

Output from this work has been presented at the ECMC Annual Network meeting (May 2019) and ASH (Dec 2019).

Solid Tumours

Shionogi vaccine study - this first in man, single site phase 1 study of S-488210/S-488211 peptide vaccine is currently recruiting patients with solid malignancies, including lung, mesothelioma, head & neck, oesophageal and bladder cancer (PI Dr Mark Linch). This landmark study is also first occasion that the UCLH CRF has run 24h PK and safety assessments on-site overnight. If safety and tolerability are demonstrated, UCLH will lead the DURANCE study (A phase Ib/II study to assess the safety and activity of DURvalumab (MEDI4736) in combination with S-488210/S-488211 vAccine in Non-muscle invasive bladder CancEr, PI Dr Mark Linch) which is the planned phase 2 study of this agent. This is an investigator initiated multi-site study, developed by UCL-CRUK-Clinical Trials Centre. The translational component of the study includes multiple sample collection of tumour, urine and peripheral blood (analysed in the UCL-Cancer Institute).

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Operational Team