Professor Simon Gates BSc, PhD, DIC, FHEA

Professor Simon Gates

Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
Professor of Biostatistics and Clinical Trials

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 371 8453
Email
s.gates@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Cancer Research Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU)
Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Simon Gates is Professor of Biostatistics and Clinical Trials at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU). He is a Deputy Director of CRCTU and is involved in design, supervision, analysis and reporting of clinical trials in paediatric cancer and a variety of other fields. His main research interests are in improving the efficiency of clinical trials so that they can provide better and more clinically useful answers, more quickly. There are several ways this could be achieved: use of innovative, more complex trial designs, introduction of more advanced statistical methods than are routinely used in many trials, improving the efficiency of trial conduct, and by better interpretation of results and communication of them to clinicians and patients. Simon is an enthusiast for the use of adaptive multi-arm trial designs, and for the use of Bayesian statistical methods in clinical research.

Simon is also the University of Birmingham lead for the Trial Methodology Research Partnership, and the Statistical Editor for the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group.

Qualifications

  • Postgraduate Certificate Academic and Professional Practice, University of Warwick 2015
  • Statistics, Open University: Mathematical Models and Methods (2nd level) 1996, Applications of probability (3rd level) 1998, Linear statistical modelling (3rd level) 1999.
  • PhD, Imperial College, 1990
  • BSc (Hons) Zoology, University of Bristol, 1985

Biography

Simon Gates originally trained as an ecologist, and worked at the British Trust for Ornithology and University of Oxford Zoology Department before moving into clinical trials and statistics. He was trials statistician at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford from 1997 to 2005, leaving to join the newly-founded Warwick Clinical Trials Unit. He remained at Warwick until 2018, working on a variety of trials, mainly in emergency and critical care. He was Joint Chief Investigator for the PARAMEDIC trial (evaluating mechanical chest compression device for cardiac arrest patients), which won the Trial of the Year Award from the Society for Clinical Trials in 2015. 

Teaching

MSc Clinical Trials. Module lead for Analysis, Interpretation and Communication of Trials.

Research

Further information on the research carried out by the CRCTU can be found online.

Other activities

  • Member of NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme General Board (2018 to date)
  • Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (1999 to date)
  • National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator (2017-2021)
  • Statistical Editor, Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group (2001 to date)
  • Clinical Trials journal, Associate Editor, 2013-2019
  • MRC Methodology Research Panel, 2011-2016
  • NIHR Standing Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials Units, 2011-2014
  • NIHR/MRC EME Board 2009-2015