St Hilda's College
In February 2019, St Hilda’s was delighted to welcome Professor Duncan Richards, the University’s first Chair of Clinical Therapeutics, in February 2019. In this role, Professor Richards is leading the University’s answer to one of the most significant challenges facing global healthcare today – how to translate novel therapies quickly and sustainably from laboratory to clinic.
Under Professor Richards’ leadership, the University has established a new Centre for Clinical Therapeutics within the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS). As part of this, a number of new Fellowships in Clinical Therapeutics have been established at St Hilda’s, providing opportunities for early and mid-career clinical scientists to develop their theoretical and practical expertise in early phase clinical trials and clinical pharmacology at Oxford. The Chair and the Fellowships have been created thanks to the vision of Professor John Climax and his commitment to advancing clinical translational research in the UK.
In parallel with the development of the new Centre for Clinical Therapeutics within NDORMS, we are also establishing a new interdisciplinary research forum at St Hilda’s: the Forum for Therapeutic Innovation. The objectives of the St Hilda’s Forum support the research strategy within NDORMS and focus on three key areas:
Regulatory Science - Advancing the way in which new medicines, devices, and other interventions are developed and evaluated
Issues related to First in Human studies - Linked to our Memorandum of Understanding with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine
Issues related to access to medicines and equality in healthcare - Ensuring that the right medicine is available to the right patients at the right time
All of the Forum’s activities will have a strong element of Patient and Public Involvement.
Our ambition is to establish the Forum for Therapeutic Innovation as a world-leading centre of research excellence, placing St Hilda’s at the forefront of interdisciplinary thinking about the future of medicines development and global health equality.