Professor Charles Craddock CBE, FRCP (UK), FRCPath, DPhil

Professor Charles Craddock

Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
Professor of Haemato-oncology

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 371 4374
Fax
+44 (0)121 697 8401
Email
charles.craddock@uhb.nhs.uk
View my research portal
Address
Centre for Clinical Haematology
Trust Headquarters
Main Drive
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TH

Charles Craddock is Academic Director of the Centre for Clinical Haematology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, UK, and Professor of Haemato-oncology, at the University of Birmingham. He trained in haematology at the Hammersmith Hospital, London, the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford and the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

Professor Craddock is a recent President of the British Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Chair of the UK Stem Cell Strategic Oversight Committee. He is Director of the Centre for Clinical Hematology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and was Transitional Director of the £24 million Birmingham Institute of Translational Medicine which  opened in 2015. He was Medical Director of the Anthony Nolan from 2010-2014. His main research interests include the development of novel drug and transplant therapies in myeloid leukaemias and he leads the Bloodwise UK Trials Acceleration Programme.

Qualifications

  • Fellow Royal College of Pathologists 2008
  • Fellow of Royal College of Physicians 2008
  • D Phil University of Oxford 1994
  • BM BCh (University of Oxford) 1982
  • BA Physiological Sciences (University of Oxford) 1979

Biography

Charles Craddock is Professor of Haemato-oncology at the University of Birmingham and the Academic Director of the Centre for Clinical Haematology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

He trained in haematology at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford, and the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. Professor Craddock is Chair of the UK Stem Cell Strategic Oversight Committee and was Medical Director of Anthony Nolan from 2010–2014. He was elected President of the British Society Of Haematology in 2017. He led the development of the £24 million Birmingham Institute of Translational Medicine, which opened in 2015 and in 2017 oversaw the £3.4m expansion of the Centre for Clinical Haematology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Professor Craddock’s main research interests include the development of novel drug and transplant therapies in myeloid leukemias and he leads the UK Haemato-oncology Trials Acceleration Programme. He pioneered the development of a UK stem cell transplant trials network, IMPACT, one of only two worldwide, which was launched in 2017.

Professor Craddock was awarded the CBE for services to medicine and medical research in the 2016 New Year’s Honours list.

Teaching

Postgraduate supervision

Professor Craddock supervises has a keen interest in the supervision of post-graduate degrees in clinical and translational aspects of stem cell transplantation and translational studies of epigenetic therapies and other novel therapies in myeloid malignancies

Research

RESEARCH THEMES

Professor Craddock’s main research interests are in the design and delivery of new drug and transplant therapies in myeloid malignancies. He has an active interest in the development of novel reduced intensity conditioning regimens, immunotherapeutic strategies aimed at reducing infectious complications post-transplant and the incorporation of targeted and epigenetic drugs as adjunctive therapies after allogeneic transplantation. He also has a major interest in improving outcomes after alternative donor transplants-particularly recipients of cord blood transplants.

NOVEL CONDITIONING REGIMENS

In the past 15 years he has made a significant contribution to the development of reduced intensity conditioning regimens in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), myelodysplasia and chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). This includes one of the first analyses of long term outcomes after an alemtuzumab based reduced intensity allograft in AML and collaborative work studying the clinical activity of such regimens in lymphoma and myeloma. This work has recently been extended to identify manipulable factors with the capacity to improve outcome after reduced intensity allografts in AML. The Early Phase Clinical Trials based in the Centre for Clinical Haematology team have pioneered the incorporation of adjunctive post-transplant therapies using targeted therapies such as imatinib and nilotinib and epigenetic therapies such as 5-azacitidine.

EPIGENETIC TEHRAPIES IN MYELOID MALIGNANCIES

Professor Craddock has a long-standing interest in the clinical activity of histone deacetylase inhibitors and DNA methyltransferase inhibitors in patients with high risk AML. The Early Phase Clinical Trials Team at the Centre for Clinical Haematology has led studies of sodium valproate and more recently combined sodium valproate and 5-azacitidine in AML. Working closely with the laboratories of Professors Stankovic and Moss these studies have documented induction of CD8+ T cell responses by epigenetic therapies in patients with AML. This work has led to the examination of the clinical activity of post-transplant 5-azacitdine in patients allografted for AML in a national Phase I/Ii trial.

Other activities

  • Academic Director of the Centre for Clinical Haematology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham
  • Chair Scientific and Medical Advisory Panel Anthony Nolan
  • Chairman UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum
  • Past President British Society Blood and Marrow Transplantation
  • Past President British Society of Haematology
  • Chair NCRI AML Working Party

Publications

Professor Craddock's top 10 publications are as follows:

1. Craddock C, Slade D, De Santo C, Wheat R, Ferguson P, Hodgkinson A, Brock K, Cavenagh J, Ingram W, Dennis M, Malladi R, Siddique S, Mussai F, Yap C. Combination lenalidomide and azacitidine: a novel salvage therapy in patients who relapse after allogeneic stem cell transplantation for acute myeloid leukemia. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2019 Jan published online.

2. Craddock CF, Houlton AE, Quek LS, Ferguson P, Gbandi E, Roberts C, Metzner M, Garcia-Martin N, Kennedy A, Hamblin A, Raghavan M, Nagra S, Dudley L, Wheatley K, McMullin MF, Pillai SP, Kelly RJ, Siddique S, Dennis M, Cavenagh JD, Vyas P Outcome of Azacitidine Therapy in Acute Myeloid Leukemia is not Improved by Concurrent Vorinostat Therapy but is Predicted by a Diagnostic Molecular Signature Clin Cancer Res(2017) 23:6430-6440

3. Tauro S*,Craddock C*, Peggs, K, Begum G, Mahendra P, Cook G.. Russell N, Mackinnon S Allogeneic stem cell transplantation using a reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) regimen has the capacity to produce durable remissions and long term disease free survival in patients with high risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplasia (MDS) J Clin Oncol (2005) 23:9387-93 (*indicates joint first author)

4. Goodyear OC, Dennis M, Jilani NY, Loke J, Siddique S, Ryan G, Nunnick J, Khanum R, Raghavan M, Cook M, Snowden JA, Griffiths M, Russell N, Yin J, Crawley C, Cook G, Vyas P, Moss P, Malladi R, Craddock CF Azacitidine augments expansion of regulatory T cells after allogeneic stem cell transplantation in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Blood (2012) 119:3361-9

5. Goodyear O, Agathanggelou A, Novitzky-Basso I, Siddique S, McSkeane T, Ryan G, Vyas P, Cavenagh J, Stankovic T, Moss P, Craddock C Induction of a CD8+ T-cell response to the MAGE cancer testis antigen by combined treatment with azacitidine and sodium valproate in patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplasia Blood (2010) 116:1908-18.

6. Olavarria E, Siddique S, Griffiths MJ, Avery S, Byrne JL, Piper KP, Lennard AL, Pallan L, Arrazi JM, Perz JB, O'Shea D, Goldman JM, Apperley JF, Craddock CF Post-transplant Imatinib as a Strategy to Postpone the Requirement for Immunotherapy in Patients Undergoing Reduced Intensity Allografts for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Blood (2008) 110:4614-

7. Craddock C, Labopin M, Pillai S, Finke J, Bunjes D, Greinix H Factors predicting outcome after unrelated donor stem cell transplantation in primary refractory acute myeloid leukaemia Leukemia (2011) 25:808-13

8. Craddock C, Quek L, Goardon N, Freeman S, Siddique S Azacitidine fails to eradicate leukaemic stem/progenitor cell populations in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplasia Leukemia (2013) 27:1028-36

9. Cobbold M, Khan N, Mahendra P, Goldman J, Tauro S, Chakraverty R, Olavarria E, Craddock C, Moss P Adoptive transfer of cytomegalovirus-specific CTL to stem cell transplant patients following selection by HLA-peptide tetramers J Exp Med (2005) 202:379-386

10. Ferguson P, Hills RK, Grech A, Betteridge S, Kjeldsen L, ..Milligan D, Clark RE, Russell NH, Craddock C An operational definition of primary refractory acute myeloid leukaemia. Haematologica (2016) 101 1351-1358

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Haemato-oncology