Bladder Cancer Translational Research Consortium

Professor Richard (Rik) Bryan

Director of the Bladder Cancer Research Centre
Professor in Urothelial Cancer Research
University of Birmingham

Rik Bryan is a former clinical urologist, and now a full-time bladder cancer research academic. He is the Chief Investigator of the Bladder Cancer Prognosis Programme (BCPP), the SELENIB clinical trial, and POUT-T. He is the Director of the Bladder Cancer Research Centre (BCRC) in the Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences. The BCRC has a particular interest in the proteomics, genomics and epigenomics of bladder cancer and related biomarkers, and novel agents, technologies and pathways.

Professor Mieke Van Hemelrijck

Professor in Cancer Epidemiology
King's College London

Professor Van Hemelrijck studied for an MSc in Biomedical Sciences (2001-2005) and an MSc in Statistical Analysis (2005-2006) at Ghent University, Belgium. While doing so, she became engaged in epidemiology research in the field of urology. She continued her epidemiological training by spending two years at the Harvard School of Public Health (2006-2008), where she obtained an MSc in Population & International Health, staying focused on urological research.

From 2008-2010, she worked with Professor Holmberg at King’s College London and obtained a PhD in Cancer Epidemiology. In 2012, she was appointed as a Lecturer in Cancer Epidemiology at King’s College London. She leads the Translational Oncology and Urology Research (TOUR) Team in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences and became a Professor in late 2020. 

BC-TRAC provides leadership in the field of bladder cancer. We do this by listening to stakeholders and setting priorities in basic, clinical, and translational research based on this conversation. We know that our research priorities change as the disease progresses and that the fundamental research we are doing needs to be informed by our clinical insights and vice versa. An important aspect of our leadership agenda is engaging with patients and the public to continue to develop our knowledge and to improve wider understanding of this disease. A third leadership role is disseminating our work to other practitioners in the field and to future experts.

Data is key to understanding bladder cancer’s biology. Therefore, much of what we do is around sharing data and learning how best to use that data. Between the BC-TRAC partners we have data from laboratory models, data about patients and data about the cancers themselves. We understand that the tumour changes greatly as it progresses and we are developing a finer understanding of these changes by pooling our resources and sharing our data. We are examining molecular data (genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic) and using machine learning to help us to differentiate between different sub-types of tumour. We then experimentally validate these sub-types in the laboratory, and work with our clinical partners to improve diagnosis based on biomarkers associated with these subtypes.

BC-TRAC Translational Research Meetings - fully interactive bladder cancer clinical research meetings led by an international expert panel of clinicians and scientists in the U.K. The forum is designed to bridge the gap between science and clinical practice and will cover the spectrum of bladder cancer research in oncology, urology, nursing, epidemiology, immuno- and molecular biology.

Russell B, Spencer-Bowdage S, Rigby J, O'Kelly J, Kelly P, Page M, Raw C, Allchorne P, Harper P, Crew J, Kockelbergh R, Knight A, Van Hemelrijck M, Bryan RT. The experience of UK patients with bladder cancer during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. BJUI Compass. 2022 May 17;3(5):324-326. doi: 10.1002/bco2.153. PMID: 35945948; PMCID: PMC9348423.

Iya AM, Beyer K, Kotecha P, Kibaru J, Abdullahi M, Alhassan SU, Mustapha MI, Ahmad A, Lawal Y, Rabiu Ibrahim J, Aminu A, Abubakar A, Saleh A, Bryan RT, Van Hemelrijck M, Russell B. Scoping review: bladder cancer in Nigeria - what are the gaps in clinical care and research? BMJ Open. 2022 Mar 8;12(3):e049241. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-049241. PMID: 35260447; PMCID: PMC8905928.

Russell B, Liedberg F, Hagberg O, Ullén A, Söderkvist K, Ströck V, Aljabery F, Gårdmark T, Jerlström T, Sherif A, Holmberg L, Bryan RT, Enting D, Van Hemelrijck M. Risk of bladder cancer death in patients younger than 50 with non-muscle-invasive and muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Scand J Urol. 2022 Feb;56(1):27-33. doi: 10.1080/21681805.2021.2002399. Epub 2021 Nov 13. PMID: 34775873.

Bessa A, Bosco C, Cahill F, Russell B, Fox L, Moss C, Wylie H, Haire A, Green S, Enting D, Khan S, Nair R, Thurairaja R, Chatterton K, Amery S, Peat N, Smith S, Spear S, Bryan RT, Frodsham L, Burke D, Rigby J, Makaroff L, Kelly P, Costin M, Häggström C, Van Hemelrijck M. Designing a Pragmatic Intervention to Help Improve the Bladder Cancer Patient Experience. Inquiry. 2021 Jan-Dec;58:469580211030217. doi: 10.1177/00469580211030217. PMID: 34271831; PMCID: PMC8287348.

Russell B, Liedberg F, Khan MS, Nair R, Thurairaja R, Malde S, Kumar P, Bryan RT, Van Hemelrijck M. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Delay in Radical Cystectomy and the Effect on Survival in Bladder Cancer Patients. Eur Urol Oncol. 2020 Apr;3(2):239-249. doi: 10.1016/j.euo.2019.09.008. Epub 2019 Oct 23. PMID: 31668714.

Co-Investigators

• Doug Ward
• Roland Arnold
• Andreas Karwath
• Mr Param Mariappan
• Gareth Griffiths
• Simon Crabb
• Anna Wilkins

Partners

• Deborah Enting - Consultant Medical Oncologist, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
• Phil Kelly - Bladder cancer patient and Action Bladder Cancer UK representative
• Lydia Makaroff - Chief Executive, Fight Bladder Cancer
• Simon Baker - Research Associate, University of York

Collaborators

• Action Bladder Cancer UK
• Fight Bladder Cancer
• Institut Pasteur & Institut Cochin (FR)
• Institute of Cancer Research
• King's College London
• NCRI Consumer
• University College London
• University of Aarhus (DK)
• University of Aberdeen
• University of Edinburgh
• University of Glasgow
• University of Manchester
• University of Sheffield
• University of Southampton
• University of York