We offer a fully funded PhD opportunity in the MRC ClinicalTrials Unit at UCL commencing in October 2019. The PhD will be in the area ofclinical trials methodology, particularly to extend the multi-arm, multi-stage (MAMS)randomised clinical trial designs – see below. Thesupervisors are Dr Babak Oskooei (UCL), Professor Max Parmar (UCL).

 

This 3 year studentship covers tuition fees, research support costs, and astipend and is open to UK and EU candidates – see below link.

 

To apply please send your cover letter and CV to Babak Oskooei (b.choodari-oskooei@ucl.ac.uk). Further details on this PhD opportunity canbe found in the following link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/clinical-trials-and-methodology/education/phd/current-studentships

 

Synopsis:

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold-standard for testing whether anew treatment is better than the current standard of care. However, the traditionaldesigns take a long time and are often expensive, increasingly so in bothcases.

 

To overcome these issues, the multi-arm, multi-stage (MAMS)trial design has been proposed, which tests several different treatments inparallel and ceases recruitment early to those treatments which appear futileusing a staged approach. The advantages over traditional designs are asfollows: 1) it saves time compared to testing all the treatments sequentiallyin a series of two-arm trials; 2) It increases the probability of identifying abetter treatment; 3) It allows testing of more treatments than would ever beperformed in two-arm trials; 4) It is considerably cheaper and more efficientthan comparable two-arm trials.

 

The MAMS approach is one of the few adaptive designs beingdeployed in a number of trials and across a range of diseases, includingROSSINI-II, RAMPART, STAMPEDE, CompARE, TRUNCATE-TB, prompting changes totreatment guidelines in patients with prostate cancer in the case of STAMPEDEtrial. The main aim of this PhD project would be to extend the design, toexplore its statistical properties, and to develop some practical guidance onimplementation of the methods for practitioners.

 

 

Latest article (Open-access):

Assessing the impact of efficacy stopping rules on the error rates under the multi-arm multi-stage framework

 

 

PhD studentship available:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/clinical-trials-and-methodology/education/phd/current-studentships