Precision Medicine (PreMed) Research Community

Precision medicine is an approach to healthcare that uses molecular, genetic, environmental, and lifestyle data to classify patients into subgroups and guide targeted prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. These differences between people are increasingly accounted for in medical studies to identify which treatments are most likely to be effective for specific groups or individuals.

In Precision Medicine, trial studies can involve much smaller groups of patients than traditional clinical trials, and efficient study designs are essential. The aim of this project is to bring together statisticians and healthcare researchers from across GW4, including clinicians and bioinformaticians, to advance innovative trial designs. The Development Award will support the advancement of statistical methods for evaluating treatments or interventions targeted to specific subgroups (defined by genetic, phenotypic or psychosocial characteristics, or other biomarkers).  A key part of the work is finding ways of making the best use of all the available information – from the study itself as it unfolds or from external sources – so that even these smaller studies can produce reliable and meaningful results. The project also aims to contribute to the development of practical recommendations for the planning of clinical trials using these innovative designs, for the clear communication of assumptions and results for future use, and to improve the adoption of existing statistical methods which are currently under-utilised in clinical trial settings.

Statisticians at GW4 institutions hold complementary expertise in the practical conduct of adaptive clinical trials (Cardiff), statistical design and analysis of clinical trials under master protocols (Bath), adjustment to multiple hypotheses testing (Bristol), causal inference and genetics (Exeter), and Bayesian methods (Bath, Bristol). The PreMed research community will foster effective collaboration between researchers sharing a transformative vision of precision medicine.

These aims will be achieved through a series of online meetings culminating with an in-person networking and sandpit event aimed at identifying research gaps in methodology and developing a shared research agenda.