THE CHRISTIE NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

Their core work

The Christie is one of Europe's largest single-site cancer centres, based in Manchester, UK, providing specialist cancer treatment, research, and education within the NHS. Their H2020 participation centres on advanced radiotherapy — particularly proton beam therapy — and cancer biomarker research. They bring clinical expertise and patient access to international research consortia, contributing real-world treatment data and clinical trial capacity. Their work spans from infrastructure-level proton therapy research to disease-specific trials in esophageal and hepatobiliary cancers.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

The Christie's H2020 journey began with broad proton therapy infrastructure research (INSPIRE, 2018) and international biomarker networks (ESCALON, 2019), then narrowed toward a specific clinical question: comparing proton and photon therapy for esophageal cancer (PROTECT-trial, 2021). This progression shows a shift from foundational research and networking toward targeted clinical validation. Their trajectory reflects the maturation of proton therapy from an experimental modality toward evidence-based clinical deployment.

Moving from broad proton therapy research toward generating hard clinical evidence for specific cancer types — expect future involvement in comparative effectiveness trials and precision radiotherapy.

How they like to work

The Christie participates exclusively as a partner, never as coordinator, which is typical for NHS clinical centres contributing patient cohorts and treatment expertise to researcher-led consortia. Despite only three projects, they have worked with 39 partners across 20 countries, indicating they join large, internationally diverse consortia. This pattern suggests they are sought after for their clinical data and proton therapy capabilities rather than driving project design themselves.

With 39 unique consortium partners spanning 20 countries from just three projects, The Christie operates within large international networks. Their partnerships extend beyond Europe into Latin America (via ESCALON), giving them an unusually broad geographic footprint for a UK clinical institution.

What sets them apart

The Christie is one of very few NHS hospitals with dedicated proton beam therapy facilities, making it a rare clinical partner for European radiotherapy research. Their dual capability — operating a proton therapy centre while running cancer biomarker research — means they can contribute to projects spanning from physics and dosimetry to molecular diagnostics. For consortium builders, they offer what most academic hospitals cannot: direct access to proton therapy patient data within a publicly funded healthcare system.

Highlights from their portfolio

• INSPIRE
  Largest funded project (EUR 58,186) — an integrating activity providing transnational access to proton therapy research infrastructure across Europe.
• PROTECT-trial
  A head-to-head clinical trial comparing proton vs photon therapy for esophageal cancer, representing the most direct clinical evidence-generation effort in their portfolio.
• ESCALON
  A European-Latin American network extending The Christie's reach beyond Europe into global biomarker research for hepatobiliary cancers.