The Tessa Jowell BRAIN-MATRIX is a first-of-its-kind clinical trial that will make brain tumour treatment more targeted and more effective.

And, with your help, The Lewis Moody Foundation is excited to be investing the money raised through headsouth to set the trial up and provide ongoing support in the future.

Even though the trial is UK-led, we expect it to have a global impact on brain cancer patients.

Why the Tessa Jowell BRAIN-MATRIX?

This trial is named the Tessa Jowell BRAIN-MATRIX in honour of Baroness Tessa Jowell, who bravely shared her diagnosis of a brain tumour on her 70th birthday.

Following that revelation, Tessa used her influence as a former minister to work towards ‘more people living longer better lives with cancer’. She was a strong advocate for adaptive clinical trials and for enabling people to share their data to improve the understanding of these terrible diseases.

These ideals are the core foundations researchers have built upon to develop the BRAIN-MATRIX.

What’s So Special About This Trial?

This is an adaptive trial because, at the time the study opens, the researchers don’t know exactly which treatments will be tested. The adaptive design means that, as new – possibly better – treatments become available, they can be added to new ‘arms’ of the study and patients can have access to them immediately.

This trial will essentially pave the way for future drug treatments to be tested faster.

The new drug treatments will likely only be effective against a subset of brain tumours – ones displaying specific molecular profiles. All the tumours in this trial will have had a molecular diagnosis at the outset, so there won’t be any need for further surgery. Participants will be able to move straight onto new treatment arms when they arrive.

These new arms can then be tested and compared with the control arm much more quickly, meaning more people will get therapy that’s likely to work better than the current standard of care.

This is particularly powerful because researchers will have all the systems they need in place, allowing them to make huge time savings.

To find out more about this revolutionary new trial, head to The Brain Tumour Charity Site here.