Belfast

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Overview

Summary

Belfast ECMC facilitates effective translational and clinical research in experimental cancer medicine within the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research (PGJCCR) at Queen's University Belfast and the Northern Ireland Cancer Trials Network within Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

We are the regional centre for early phase clinical trials for cancer patients within Northern Ireland and for wider referrals as the only early phase cancer trials unit within Ireland. Our portfolio includes studies that have arisen directly from translation of our internationally-recognised discovery research, academic studies developed collaboratively with other ECMCs nationally, other organisations internationally and commercial studies.

We have worked with over 40 pharma companies and over 14 years delivered 76 commercial studies. We also have a strong focus on precision medicine with a track record in novel genomic biomarker identification and development through our established industry collaborations. Our research is supported by GLP-standard core facilities providing expertise in genomics, bioinformatics, bio-imaging and tissue pathology and through partnership working with the Northern Ireland Biobank and the Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence. Additionally, we have established a joint clinical doctoral training fellowship programme with the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto to train our next generation of Phase I clinical trialists.

Our patient population

Belfast ECMC is located within the Cancer Centre in the Belfast HSC Trust. The Cancer Centre provides specialist cancer services including early phase cancer clinical trials for patients across Northern Ireland (approximately 1.8M population). Breast, gastrointestinal, lung and prostate cancers are treated at four other hospital sites within the region with established referral pathways for ECMC trials. In 2019, 11,703 cancer patients received treatment at the Cancer Centre with 4622 receiving systemic therapy for solid tumours, 2953 receiving systemic therapy for haematological malignancies and 4128 receiving radiotherapy. 251 patients received treatment within a clinical trial.

Organisations affiliated with Belfast ECMC include:

Queen’s University Belfast and Belfast Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust

Our location

Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Centre is directly linked to the Northern Irish and Irish Rail Networks and is close to national and international airlinks to UK and European destinations and a 1.5 hour drive from Dublin International airport.

Contact the Centre Manager:

Dr Melanie Morris
melanie.morris@belfasttrust.hscni.net
+44 (0) 289 063 8468

Address

Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology
Queen’s University Belfast
97 Lisburn Road
Belfast BT9 7AE

Team Members

Professor Vicky Coyle

Clinical Lead

Expertise:

Adult

v.coyle@qub.ac.uk

+44 (0)28 9097 2942

Prof. Vicky Coyle is a Professor of Medical Oncology and Honorary Consultant Medical Oncologist in the Belfast Trust. Prof. Coyle's clinical practice focuses on colorectal cancer and early phase cancer clinical trials. Prof. Coyle also has an interest in translational and clinical research in colorectal cancer focusing on mechanisms of treatment response and resistance.

Dr Kienan Savage

ECMC Scientific Lead

k.savage@qub.ac.uk

+44 (0) 289 097 2934

Dr Kienan Savage is a Reader in Molecular Oncology in the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research (PGJCCR), Queen's University Belfast. Kienan's basic and translational research interests focus on understanding the cellular DNA damage response/repair systems with particular emphasis on how defects in these pathways, contribute to cancer development, progression and response to treatment. More recent work from the Savage lab has focused characterising the DNA damage induced immune response and using this knowledge to develop rational combination therapies with immune checkpoint blockade. In line with this, Kienan is the translational lead on a number of breast cancer trials and is a member of the NCRI Breast Clinical Studies Group.

Mr Stuart McIntosh

ECMC Deputy Clinical Lead

s.mcintosh@qub.ac.uk

+44 (0) 289 097 2760

Stuart McIntosh is a Clinical Reader in Surgical Oncology at Queen’s University in Belfast, and an honorary consultant breast surgeon at Belfast City Hospital. He is an experienced breast cancer clinical trialist, with a particular interest in neoadjuvant, peri-surgical and treatment de-escalation studies. He is the Chief Investigator for the UK HTA-funded SMALL trial, a national phase III multicentre study comparing standard surgery with vacuum-assisted excision for the treatment of small screen-detected breast cancers. His translational research interests lie in the area of the DNA damage immune response in breast cancer. He is Chair of the UK National Cancer Research Institute Breast Research Group and a member of the NCRI Strategic Advisory Group, and is also the Royal College of Surgeons Breast Surgical Specialty Lead, responsible for supporting the development and delivery of breast cancer surgical trials nationally.

Professor Dan Longley

Deputy Scientific Lead

Expertise:

Adult

d.longley@qub.ac.uk

+44 (0)28 9097 2636

Prof. Dan Longley is Professor of cell death and drug resistance. Prof. Longleys’ work is focussed on understanding how cancer cells respond to chemotherapy. He has worked extensively on cell death and how targeting cell death regulators can overcome resistance to chemotherapy and other anti-cancer therapies, translating findings into early clinical trials. Prof. Longley is actively involved in medicinal chemistry programmes both in Queen’s and in collaboration with Almac Discovery. He is also working on ways of identifying sub-groups of patients who benefit from chemotherapy post-surgery, and, just as importantly, sub-groups who fail to benefit. In addition to leading his own laboratory, Prof. Longley is Deputy Director of PJCCR.

Dr Melanie Morris

Operational Director

melanie.morris@belfasttrust.hscni.net

+44(0)28 9063 8468

The Centre Business Lead for Belfast ECMC is the Operational Director of the Northern Ireland Cancer Trials Network, Dr Melanie Morris. Melanie obtained her PhD from Leeds University in 1995 and moved to the Beatson Institute in Glasgow for post-doctoral research exploring mechanisms of drug resistance. Thereafter she worked within the Contract Research and Pharma Industries, specialising in global clinical trial project management and regulatory affairs, moving to her current post in 2005. With over 25 years’ experience in clinical research and having been part of ECMC since its inception, Melanie currently oversees a multidisciplinary team supporting the regulatory set-up, design and delivery of cancer clinical trials and has been an active member of several ECMC operational work streams over the years.

Ruth Boyd

Lead Research Nurse and PPIE Lead (Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement)

ruth.boyd@belfasttrust.hscni.net

+44 (0) 289 063 8468

The PPIE lead for Belfast ECMC is Ruth Boyd. Ruth is a Cancer Research UK Senior Nurse and a Deputy Director in the NI Cancer Trials Network (NICTN). Ruth is passionate about having personal and public involvement at all stages of research and through collaborative working with the Northern Ireland Cancer Research Consumer Forum, has co-developed our new Strategy for PPI in Cancer Research in Northern Ireland 2019-2024. This will build on the portfolio of existing activities that include recruitment and training of new Forum members, developing collaborations with other patient and public groups nationally and internationally and offering training to clinical and scientific cancer researchers.

Mr. Tim Kerr

ECMC Patient and Public Representative

The PPI Representative for ECMC Belfast is Tim Kerr. Tim was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2012. He is a member of the NI Cancer Research Consumer Forum and has a broad breadth of PPI experience in NI and beyond. He is a keen volunteer with Bowel Cancer UK and is a grants panel member of the World Cancer Research Fund.

Adult Expertise

Treatment Modalities

Gene therapy

Immunotherapy

Small Molecules

Surgery

Facilities/Translational Research

Dedicated 24 hour stay facilites (including weekends)
On-site pharmacy
Biobanking facilites
Dedicated research staff
Snap freezing facilities
On-site ITU (intensive treatment unit)
On-site central lab

Cancer Types

We have expertise in both solid tumours and haematological malignancies.

Our research programme focuses on translating our discovery research into biomarker-guided, biologically-informed clinical trials predominantly in our disease specialty areas of gastrointestinal, prostate, blood, ovarian and breast cancers. Through our internationally-recognised scientific programmes we are advancing our understanding of tumour and host biology and the mechanisms of treatment resistance. This has resulted in the development of a number of experimental cancer medicine clinical trials exploring novel agents (singly or in combination) and in combination with standard of care treatments. Examples of this include the CRUK LY3143921 first-in-human CDC7 inhibitor clinical trial, the European multicentre MErCuRIC clinical trial (targeting MET/MEK in colorectal cancer) and our current programme investigating IAP antagonists in combination with standard of care chemotherapy and radiotherapy in colorectal and prostate cancer.

Through established industry collaborations we have experience in novel cancer therapeutic development from identification through to clinical evaluation (for example, the anti-angiogenic agent ALM201 with Almac Discovery). Other candidates progressing through development have arisen from our scientific programmes targeting cell death pathway mediators and ubiquitination. These programmes are progressing through partnerships with both small-medium and large scale companies and through university spin-in organisations, for example, CV6 Therapeutics.

We have a strong focus on precision medicine and our academic-industry collaboration with Almac Diagnostics has progressed candidate biomarkers to application in clinical practice such as the DNA damage immune response (DDIR) signature which predicts response to adjuvant and neoadjuvant systemic therapy in breast and oesophagogastric cancers, and the ColDx signature which identifies patients with Stage II colorectal cancer at high risk of recurrence. In line with this, we have a well-established pre-surgical trial platform in breast cancer for the delivery of neoadjuvant and window of opportunity studies, for prospective biomarker assessment and for the evaluation of therapeutic agents.

Our Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence brings together international expertise in cancer genomics, tissue hybridization and digital molecular pathology to deliver biomarker research, linking closely with our on-site pan-cancer Biobank and multiple industry partners, and extending our track record in commercialisation in digital pathology.

Our rapidly growing programme in digital health is enabling our precision medicine programmes through the design and application of novel software incorporating AI, including genetic algorithms for search optimisation and deep learning methods, to identify novel prognostic signatures and map tumour evolution and heterogeneity in colorectal and other cancers.

Drug/Treatment Modalities

Advanced cellular therapies
Combination therapies

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

The centre provides a regional radiotherapy service and all-Ireland specialist treatment services and is equipped with 10 advanced linacs treating over 4,000 new patients per year. In addition to the listed treatment modalities, there is a brachytherapy service, a Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) service and an oligo-metastatic SABR service via a weekly MDT. Over the past 10 years we have doubled the number of interventional radiotherapy clinical trials open in Belfast in addition to delivering early phase trials arising directly from our research interests in technical radiotherapy and radionuclide/radiotherapy combinations.

Molecular Diagnostic Testing

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

Single gene testing
Disease specific NGS panel testing (next generation sequencing)
Large NGS panel testing

This is available for tumours and for ctDNA (circulating tumour DNA)

The centre has NGS capabilities for tumour and ctDNA with a turnaround time of 3-4 weeks. This will be incorporated into the routine clinical diagnostics service for solid tumours, sarcomas and haematological malignancies in Q1 2021. Additional molecular profiling capabilities include ddPCR, q-PCR, FISH, multiplex IHC and RNAscope.

Case Study

Case Studies

New anti-angiogenic agent first-in-man study

Belfast ECMC has recently set up a trial of a new anti-angiogenic agent, ALM201, discovered at Queen’s University, Belfast. The first-in-man study in up to 60 patients with ovarian cancer will be run across the ECMC Network. ALM201 was developed into a drug in collaboration with Almac Discovery, a local biotechnology company.

The ALM 201 trial continues to recruit well and will soon determine a recommended phase II dose and schedule. We will then open to additional ECMCs in summer 2016 for the expansion phase limited to patients with biomarker-defined platinum resistant high grade serous ovarian cancer.

MErCuRIC

Belfast ECMC is leading on the pan-European MErCuRIC project involving 13 partners from eight different European countries. This multicentre phase Ib/II clinical trial will assess the combination of a MEK inhibitor with a MET inhibitor to combat metastasis, improve survival and change current clinical practice for colorectal cancer patients with KRAS mutant and wild type tumours. Next generation sequencing and ‘xenopatients’ will be used to identify patient subgroups that will gain maximum benefit from this novel treatment strategy.

The MERCURIC trial has completed its dose escalation of the combination of cMET and MEK inhibitors. A limited dose escalation component will investigate the combination of our CMET inhibitor crizotinib with a new MEK inhibitor binimetinib. Once the recommended phase II dose and schedule are established, additional ECMCs will join us in late 2016 for the expansion phase limited to patients with biomarker-defined metastatic colorectal cancer.

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