All are invited to the hybrid Bradford Hill Seminar:

Designing efficient clinical trials during a pandemic

Professor Thomas Jaki

MRC Biostatistics Unit and University of Regensburg

Register to attend

Please note this will be a hybrid seminar, with the option to attend in-person (East Forvie Building, Forvie Site, Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 0SR) or virtually (via Zoom). When registering, please select the relevant ticket option.

Register on Eventbrite to attend seminar in person or online.

Abstract

Clinical trials are the gold standard when evaluating the potential of a novel treatment, a standard that should not be compromised during a pandemic. At the same time, there are unique challenges in conducting studies in a novel disease, such as COVID-19, and developing novel treatments during a major outbreak of the disease. For example the limited understanding of the natural history of the disease makes it difficult to choose the primary endpoint for a study while potentially highly volatile number of infections makes it difficult to determine the rate and ability to recruit. In this talk Professor Jaki will discuss some of the key issues in designing clinical trials during a pandemic and reflect on his experiences with COVID-19 trials.

Following the seminar, Professor Jaki will be available for a Q&A session with audience members, from 2 – 2.30pm.

About Professor Jaki

Thomas is Professor of Computational Statistics at the University of Regensburg and MRC Professor of Statistics and Programme Leader in the DART theme at the MRC Biostatistics Unit. His work focuses on developing and evaluating novel statistical methods for clinical studies. These methods are adapted for specific applications to ensure they can be used in the pharmaceutical industry and also in public sector research institutions. His current research focuses on model-based dose-finding trials as well as Master protocols.

About the Bradford Hill seminars

The Bradford Hill seminar series is the principal series of The Cambridge Population Health Sciences Partnership. This comprises the Department of Public Health & Primary Care, MRC Biostatistics Unit and MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, bringing together a multi-disciplinary partnership of academics and public health professionals. The Bradford Hill seminar programme of internationally recognised speakers covers topics of broad interest to our public health research community. It aims to transcend as well as connect the activities of our individual partners.

All are welcome at our Bradford Hill seminars.