Clinical Research Fellow in Advanced Radiotherapy

at  The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

A 1- year fellowship has been created to allow the successful candidate to gain specialist training in advanced radiotherapy. The particular emphasis of this fellowship will be towards the technological advances in Radiation Oncology. The fellowship will allow the candidate to gain in depth experience in advanced radiotherapy techniques such as IMRT (intensity-modulated radiotherapy) and advanced image-guided radiotherapy using the MR-Linac. There will also be the opportunity to gain research experience and pursue original research projects.
This is an opportunity for the candidate to launch a career in world-leading cancer research. They will play a part in improving treatment-decision making for patients with locally advanced Non-Small Cell Lung cancer (NSCLC) by identifying biomarkers that can be used to stratify patients in future clinical trials. A range of high- quality data has already been collected in the VIGILANCE study including ctDNA patterns, radiomics features from imaging and electronic patient reported outcome measures (ePROMs). Their role will be part of our overall strategy to make more use of routinely collected data to personalise treatment approaches and improve patient outcomes for all.
We are looking for candidates with ambition, commitment, a passion to improve patient outcomes and a strong desire to develop a career in cancer research.
This position is suitable for individuals who wish to gain specialist training in advanced radiotherapy research. The post holder is required to have obtained a FRCR qualification or equivalent prior to commencing this post.
This post is for 40 hours per week to provide support for the appropriate clinics and research that is taking place in the department of Radiotherapy Related Research Group.
The post holder will also play an active role in the recruitment of patients onto lung cancer clinical trials and in all aspects of care for patients enrolled on these trials. They will work closely with other members of the multidisciplinary teams and will support the consultants, clinical fellows, specialist registrars, and clinical research nurses in managing the clinical trial portfolio of the Lung Cancer Research Team.
It is anticipated the post-holder will attend appropriate clinics per week (a maximum of one research and one NHS clinics), and multidisciplinary meetings. In addition, they will participate in clinical research meetings and any other relevant trial planning or trial set-up meetings. The post-holder will also spend time analysing clinical data, writing abstracts/manuscripts, planning new studies and attending educational meetings.
The Lung team comprises 9 Consultants, 2 Sub-specialty Trainee and 2 Clinical Fellows. We are supported by a team of 4 Clinical Nurse Specialists. We are friendly, hard-working team focused on delivering high quality patient-centred care. We encourage all members of team to engage in SMDT, clinics and inpatient care.
We have a team of 8 research radiographers led by a team leader who implement radiotherapy (RT) clinical trials including access to advanced technologies such as MR-Linac and protons.
On average, the team can be managing 20 recruiting studies and 20 studies in follow-up with Principal Investigators across clinical oncology and surgery.
We have access to a National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Facility on-site. This facility gives us access to a dedicated unit to treat patients on trials and a research laboratory to process clinical
The Radiotherapy Related Research department has world-leading collaborative researchers in RT immunology, radiobiology, biomarkers, pre-clinical drug RT combination studies, RT physics, computational oncology and Proton Beam Therapy. Its ambition is to drive Phase I-III clinical trials with state-of-the art radiotherapy, alongside imaging and biological prognostic and predictive biomarker development including genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics.
Duties
1. Recruit patients for the VIGILANCE study, analyse the data and present the findings. This role also involved conducting translational research in collaboration with CRUK National Biomarker Centre.
2. Work with other clinical oncologists, physicians, radiotherapy planning specialists, physicists, methodologists, and statisticians to ensure a collaborative working
3. Be involved in the clinical management of lung cancer patients receiving radiotherapy environment.
4. Interact with allied research activities.
5. Supervise entry and treatment of patients in clinical studies
6. Support the Lung Cancer Research Team in the delivery of clinical trials.
7. Undertake projects related to radiotherapy-related research including patient recruitment, data analysis, protocol and grant writing.
8. Produce, or contribute towards, high impact peer-reviewed publications.
9. Disseminate research findings through presentations at seminars and conferences.
Line Management
The post holder will be responsible to Professor Corinne Faivre-Finn, Professor of Thoracic Radiation Oncology, University of Manchester/Honorary Consultant in Clinical Oncology, The Christie NHS Foundation Hospita

Please refer the Job description for details