Jonathan Lim, Associate Faculty at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, Lead of RISE Consortium at RISE Manchester, Deputy Lead of MANIFEST Consortium at MANIFEST IO, shared on LinkedIn by The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, adding:
“Grateful to The Christie Charity for backing the MANIFEST IO prospective study by investing in talented Clinical Research Fellows such as Dr Marija Miletić, MD, who is now helping us operationalise this landmark study.
Marija is working very closely with our consultant colleagues across different disease sites, R&I Translational Research Programme Lead Dr Kate Brown, PhD, as well as Senior Lead Research Nurse Suze Allibone and her team in the Observational Research Studies team, and importantly, Jane Rogan and her invaluable MCRC Biobank team.
Charity-funded fellowships like this are what turn ambitious study designs into delivered science.”
Quoting The Christie NHS Foundation Trust:
“The first patient has been recruited to a landmark study that aims to understand why some patients benefit more from immunotherapy than others, and why some develop treatment-related side effects.
Led by The Christie, the prospective MANIFEST study aims to recruit 3,000 people across the UK who are starting immunotherapy for cancers including breast, bladder, kidney and melanoma.
As one of the largest studies of its kind in the UK, it will support the MANIFEST IO platform, which aims to provide deep profiling of patients receiving immunotherapy, helping researchers understand differences in treatment response and better predict and manage side effects.
Dr Marija Miletić, MD, Senior Translational Research Fellow at The Christie, is the clinical contact for patients on the study. She says:
‘Patients respond differently to immunotherapy, both in the benefit they receive and in the side effects they experience. By following patients throughout treatment and studying how their immune system changes over time, the MANIFEST platform aims to better understand the biology of response, resistance and toxicity.
We hope this will be one of the keys to discovering predictive biomarkers and new therapeutic targets, helping to unlock the next generation of more precise, effective and better-tolerated immunotherapies.’
The MANIFEST platform and study are both funded by a grant from the Office for Life Sciences and the Medical Research Council through the MANIFEST consortium, led by The Francis Crick Institute, in collaboration with other academic, industry, NHS and patient partners.”
