The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

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The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres looking after more than 60,000 patients a year. We serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester and Cheshire, and as a national specialist centre around a quarter of our patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

Site Description

The Christie was the first UK centre accredited as a Comprehensive Cancer Centre by the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI). We are proud to be known worldwide as experts in cancer care, research and education. What we do is shaped by our values, our patients and our public and our goal is to constantly improve services for our patients and provide the best cancer care possible.

Greater Manchester is one of the UK’s most diverse and fastest growing populations and is the third most deprived area in England. The Northwest has the second highest cancer incidence in the UK and includes 11 of England’s most deprived areas with disproportionate cancer prevalence.

The Christie hosts over 100 experienced principal investigators, many of whom are recognised key opinion leaders, supported by more than 400+ dedicated research staff across 24 specialised research groups. With over 800 active clinical trials and state of the art facilities, our integrated, multidisciplinary environment brings together clinicians, surgeons, scientists, allied health professionals, and research managers to deliver world leading studies.

Participant identification and recruitment is achieved via a wide range of channels including new referrals, existing patient pathways, multi hospital MDTs (multidisciplinary teams), supra regional networks, Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) networks, research location profile, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust newsletters, and a strong digital presence via charity and disease specific websites, as well as our own Christie platform. Each research group independently leads its portfolio of clinical trials from feasibility through set up, delivery, follow up, and archiving; supported by our cross-cutting research & innovation (R&I) Office for operations and governance, providing seamless support for contracts, costings (including NCVR), service level agreements (SLAs) and external provider agreements.

Research Expertise

Our research portfolio encompasses over 800 studies across all phases, from early phase/first in human through to phase IV, as well as observational and real-world data studies. We have extensive experience in the delivery of advanced therapy clinical trials, with dedicated resources and infrastructure in place to support. This experience is split across solid tumours and haematological malignancies.

The advanced immunotherapy and cell therapy (AICT) team is an early phase clinical trials team specialising in the delivery of complex cell therapy and immunotherapy trials across a range of solid cancer types. This team is led by Professor Fiona Thistlethwaite with Dr Jonathon Lim. Examples of our AICT clinical trial portfolio include:

Tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) therapy
T-Cell Receptor (TCR) therapies & chimeric antigen receptor- T (CAR-T) cell therapies
mRNA and other vaccines
Upcoming TCR-NK (TCR-Natural Killer) trials
Advanced Therapy Investigational Medicinal Products (ATiMP) specific biomarkers

As of December 2025, our AICT team has successfully delivered 11 ATiMP clinical trials in solid tumours. We have also reached several major milestones, including becoming the first team in Europe to open, recruit to, and treat patients on multiple ATiMP trials, and achieving the highest global recruitment for several studies.

In December 2025, the Medical Research Council (MRC) funded a UK led consortium called RISE (reducing immune stress from excess cytokine release in advanced therapies). This programme of work, aimed at making advanced therapy cancer treatments safer for patients, will be led by a collaboration of clinicians, scientists, engineers, data scientists, and industry innovators across Manchester’s academia NHS ecosystem.

The cellular therapy and transplant programme at The Christie was first JACIE (Joint Accreditation Committee of the ISCT and the EBMT) certified in 2009 and has since been recertified, with the most recent in November 2025. In October 2018 the cellular therapy and transplant programme was selected as a first wave UK centre to deliver CAR-T therapies, commencing treatment of patients with licenced CAR-T products from 2019.

Specialist haematology services at The Christie include:

Haematology and transplant unit (HTU)
Clinical haematology service
Haematology nurse specialist service
Apheresis facilities including dedicated stem cell laboratory
Laboratory services

The haematology cellular therapy and early phase clinical trials are led by , providing expertise and a national leading role in CAR-T and TCR trial delivery, including phase 1-3 across all haematology-oncology indications. As of December 2025, our Haematology-Oncology CAR-T research team has successfully delivered 9 ATiMP clinical trials in haematology and lymphoma. Recent major milestone achievements include being first European site open, global top recruiter and first global patient treated with CAR-T product for the QUINTESSTIAL-2 trial, UK top recruiter for the trial and NCI (National Chief Investigator) selected on five trials.

The Christie is involved with and contributes to national and international cell therapy research bodies and networks including:

British Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BSBMT)
European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT)
Global network focusing on stem cell transplant and cellular therapy trials

Licences and certifications

JACIE certified for cell therapy delivery (Nov 2025)
Human Tissue Authority (HTA) licensed for procurement, processing, testing, storage, storage of relevant materials, distribution and export (Nov 2024)
NHS England (NHSE) approved centre for provision of licensed CAR-T products

Research Facilities

The research facilities at The Christie allow laboratory capabilities and translational research initiatives in cell therapy to collaborate with clinical expertise in the same location footprint.

Dedicated clinical trials Pharmacy and aseptic unit
Cells delivered on the Palatine ward (haematology oncology and teenage and young adult (TYA) services)
Ambulatory care supporting haematology and TYA services
Specialised radiologists trained in RECIST1.1, Lugano, CHESON, and others
Comprehensive cancer centre with all expected treatment modality capabilities including advanced radiology (MR, MR Linac, CT, X-Ray, ultrasound guided procedures) and proton beam

The NIHR Clinical Research Facility (CRF) features:

10 inpatient beds
26 treatment chairs
16 consultation rooms
Onsite lab, pre analytics, and staff support areas
A specialist team for complex trial delivery

Our CRF is moving towards 24/7 operating model which will expand our capabilities even further.

A fully equipped CCU, advanced investigational pharmacy, and high spec laboratories further support complex research delivery.

The Manchester Cancer Research Centre Biobank, with capacity for over 60,000 samples, has supported more than 60 projects and over 10 recent industry collaborations.

Our Christie patient centred research (CPCR) team conduct high quality research, with people at the heart of their approach. They are currently leading on an electronic patient reported outcome measures (ePROMs) study in the adoptive cell therapy setting.

We have highly trained and experienced research delivery staff and support the expanding roles that are emerging within the national landscape. This includes roles such as clinical research practitioners (CRPs) and advanced practitioners. Our advanced practitioners within our R&I division work as sub investigators on our trials and have attained their digital badge with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) which ensures they are qualified and supported to do so. We also have CRUK Senior Research Nurses within our leadership team who work at a national level with UK colleagues to support the delivery of research.

We also operate outreach research delivery sites, enabling trials to reach more patients across Greater Manchester.

Our regional collaborations include: