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Core Management Team

The Core Management Team is responsible for the strategic operations of the unit and ultimately provides oversight of all Sponsor delegated functions for all clinical trials of investigational medicinal products led by unit themes.

Professor Ian Wilkinson
Director

Professor Ian Wilkinson

Prof Wilkinson is Director of the CCTU, Honorary Consultant Physician at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, WE Parkes British Heart Foundation Senior Fellow, fellow of the British Hypertension Society, fellow of the British Pharmacological society and fellow of the American Heart Association. He is also Professor of Therapeutics, Staff Fellow in Clinical Medicine, Director of the Office of Translational Research and Head of the Experimental Medicine and Immunotherapeutics (EMIT) group at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on understanding the biological pathways underlying systemic hypertension and arteriosclerosis, with a strong emphasis on basic physiology, experimental/translational medicine and early phase interventional clinical trials.

Louise Stockley
Operations Director

Louise Stockley

Louise Stockley is the Operations Director of the CCTU. She directs the strategic research operations and administrative functions of the unit. She holds overall responsibility for ensuring that the CCTU portfolio of interventional and observational trials are well managed and demonstrate good value, innovation and excellence in health research.

Dr Simon Bond
Lead Senior Statistician

Dr Simon Bond

Dr Bond is the Lead Senior Statistician at the CCTU. He leads the statistics department of the unit in the development and delivery of statistical services and maintains his own research portfolio of developments in statistical methodology. Dr Bond leads the Early Phase Clinical Trials Group within the NIHR statistics group, and leads an NIHR efficiency project that provides software tools to aid the reporting of safety data into EudraCT. He is a Chartered Statistician within the Royal Statistical Society and is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Rona Smith
Trials Methodologist and Senior Clinical Trials Fellow

Dr Rona Smith

Dr Smith is an Expert Advisor and Senior Clinical Trials Fellow at the CCTU and a Consultant Nephrologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Staff Fellow at Trinity College as well as a Clinical Lecturer in nephrology and experimental medicine at Cambridge University. Dr Smith leads a portfolio of trials in renal medicine and autoimmune diseases and consults as trials methodologist, in addition to directing the Patient Led Research Hub of the CCTU.

Carrie Bayliss
Regulatory and Quality Manager

Carrie Bayliss

Carrie Bayliss is the Regulatory and Quality Manager of the CCTU. She has overall management responsibility for the Regulatory Team which undertakes Sponsor delegated functions for all clinical trials of investigational medicinal products, ensuring they are set up, conducted and completed in compliance with all local and national regulations and guidelines.

Dr Paula Kareclas
Clinical Trials Manager

Dr Paula Kareclas

Dr Kareclas is the Clinical Trials Manager of the CCTU Core Theme and has overall  management responsibility for a team of trial coordinators and data managers. She ensures that all clinical research projects managed by the Core Theme are set-up, ran and closed down in accordance with all Sponsor, funder and regulatory requirements.

Idris
Team Lead - Database Programming

Idris Yakub

Idris Yakub leads the database programming team at the Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit (CCTU). He has overall responsibility for the design, development and maintenance of database applications to support all clinical trials that are academically coordinated by the CCTU. He also ensures that all database applications and infrastructures, used by the CCTU, are compliant with all local and national regulations and guidelines.

Dessie Mihneva-Falcini
Administrator

Dessie Mihneva-Falcini

Dr Thomas Hiemstra
Trials Methodologist

Dr Thomas Hiemstra

Dr Hiemstra is an Honorary Consultant Nephrologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Hiemstra chairs the UK Kidney Research Consortium Clinical Trials Network (UKRTN), is chair of the International Clinical Trials Centre Network (ICN), and deputy chair of the International Society of Nephrology Advancing Clinical Trials (ISN-ACT).