MRes Experimental Medicine (Cancer)

Course description

Our MRes Experimental Medicine (Cancer) programme will give nurses, doctors, clinical researchers and clinical trials co-ordinators the skills needed to work in early phase clinical studies.

You will learn how to master experimental medicine with a focus on cancer through a combination of traditional teaching and hands-on learning, through spending a year as a member of the Experimental Cancer Medicine Team at The Christie while also taking four structured taught units.

The taught units will see you learn the details of designing and delivering Phase 1 clinical studies, understanding the pre-clinical data required before a clinical programme can commence, and how to optimise early clinical studies to provide evidence for progressing a promising drug into Phase II/III clinical testing.

Alongside the taught elements, you will be allocated to one or more clinical trials that are being conducted by The Christie Experimental Cancer Medicine team. You will have a named supervisor and be exposed to tasks required in the setup, delivery, interpretation and audit of a clinical study.

Nursing and physician students will be expected to participate in patient care, including new and follow-on patient clinics, treatment and care-giving episodes with patients. For clinical trial coordinators, no direct patient contact is envisaged and duties will involve clinical trial setup, protocol amendments, database setup, data entry, costing and billing for clinical research.

You will be able to choose two aspects of your direct clinical trial research experience to write up for your two research projects in a dissertation format. This will give you the skills and knowledge required to critically report medical, scientific and clinically related sciences for peer review.

Aims

The primary purpose of the MRes in Experimental Medicine (Cancer) is to provide you with the opportunity to work within a premier UK Phase 1 cancer clinical trials unit and, through a mix of taught and experiential learning, master the discipline of experimental medicine related to cancer.

Career opportunities

This course is relevant to physician, nursing and clinical researchers who are considering careers that involve Phase 1 clinical studies.

The course provides a theoretical and experiential learning experience and offers a foundation for roles within other experimental medicine centres within the UK and EU, as well as careers in academia, the pharmaceutical industry, clinical trials management and medicine.

The MRes is ideal for high-calibre graduates and professionals wishing to undertake research training in the clinical and medical oncology field.