Mr Darren Barton BSc

Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
D3B Trial Management Team Leader

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 371 8027
Email: d.barton@bham.ac.uk

Address: Office 10, 5th Floor
Open Plan East, Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM)
Heritage Building,
Mindelsohn Way,
Edgbaston,
Birmingham, B15 2TH

Darren Barton is the D3B Trials Team Leader at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU) at the University of Birmingham.

Qualifications

Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM)
Level 3 Certificate in Leadership and Management, 2017 (University of Birmingham)
BSc (Hons) Marine Biology, 1995 (Bangor University)

Biography

Darren Barton graduated with a BSc (Hons) Marine Biology from Bangor University (North Wales: 1992-1995). After working in pre-clinical toxicology in animal models (both standard toxicology and reproductive and behavioural toxicology in the role of; Histologist, Necropsy/pathology specialist and Study supervisor for approximately 5 years.

Darren joined CRCTU in July 2002 as a Trial Administrator, working in the field of urology (Prostate cancer and Bladder cancer). In 2005 Darren was promoted to Trial Coordinator and his first investigator-led study was entitled: TRAPEZE a phase II/III randomised study combine strontium-89, Zoledronic acid and docetaxel chemotherapy in patients with advanced metastatic prostate cancer involving the bone.

Darren has subsequently coordinated (National Coordinator and Local Coordinator) a number of academic Phase I,II clinical trials involving medical devices, Investigational Medicinal Products (IMPs), Advanced therapy investigational products (ATIMPs) in the field of liver disease. The majority of which were after he was promoted to Senior Trial Coordinator (2009) and he was one of the first appointees to the new NIHR Liver Biomedical Research Unit founded in August 2009.

Darren was responsible along with other senior members of the team for managing a wide portfolio of industry sponsored liver trials (HCV, Auto-immune disease, liver transplantation, NASH) as well as the coordinator for Multiple investigator –led academic/industry collaboration Phase I/II trials in Liver cirrhosis, Non-alcoholic fatty-liver disease, and Hepatitis C reinfection (post-transplant- prevention). These studies involved IMPs, Biological therapy and medical devices. He has worked closely with industry and various clinical teams at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and has run trials on behalf of the University of Birmingham (sponsor) and local site.

In 2016 Darren was appointed a D3B Trials Team Leader and currently leads the D3B team portfolio (which includes a wide range of studies in area of trauma medicine, neurology, ophthalmology, surgery, medical devices and inflammatory diseases. D3B is a core member of the Birmingham Health partners ITM initiative.

Research

Darren Barton has contributed to the design, set-up and management of a wide portfolio of early phase clinical studies/trials (including drugs and medical devices). These studies involved a wide variety of disease research areas including ; Emergency care (multiple trauma, cardiology) , Neurological trauma (Traumatic brain injury, spinal cord trauma), Rare diseases ( Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Wolfram Syndrome, Idiopathic Intracranial hypertension) and liver transplantation.

Publications

Discarded livers tested by normothermic machine perfusion in the VITTAL trial: Secondary end points and 5-year outcomes. Liver Transplantation 30 (1):p 30-45, January 2024. | DOI: 10.1097/LVT.0000000000000270. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38109282/ Mergental, Hynek; Laing, Richard ; Kirkham, Amanda ; Clarke, George; Boteon, Yuri L.; Barton, Darren; Neil, Desley A.H.; Isaac, John R.; Roberts, Keith J.; Abradelo, Manuel; Schlegel, Andrea; Dasari, Bobby V.M.; Ferguson, James W.; Cilliers, Hentie; Morris, Chris; Friend, Peter J; Yap, Christina; Afford, Simon C.; Perera, M. Thamara P.R.; Mirza, Darius F

The efficacy and optimal dose of Acetic Acid to treat colonised burns wounds: protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial- BMJ Open 2023;13:e058006. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/9/e058006 Rizwana Imran, Tarek Hassouna*, Gurneet Sur, Anna Casey, Victoria Homer, Darren Barton, Kristian Brock, Khaled Altarrah, Naiem Moiemen

Introduction of the concept of diagnostic sensitivity and specificity on normothermic perfusion protocols to assess high-risk donor livers. Hynek Mergental, Richard W Laing,James Hodson,Yuri L Boteon,Joseph A Attard,Laine L Walace,Desley AH Neil, Darren Barton, Andrea Schlegel, Paolo Muiesan, Manuel Abradelo, … See all authors First published: 07 October 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/lt.26326 Liver Transplantation

A prospective, phase II, single-centre, cross-sectional, randomised study investigating Dehydroepiandrosterone supplementation and its Profile in Trauma: ADaPT. Conor Bentley, Claire Potter, Kamal Makram Yakoub ,Kristian Brock, Victoria Homer, Emma Toman Angela E Taylor, Fozia Shaheen, Lorna C Gilligan, Amrita Athwal, Darren Barton, Ronald Carrera, Katie Young, Amisha Desai Kirsty McGee, Christos Ermogenous, Gurneet Sur, Carolyn A Greig, Jon Hazeldine ,Wiebke Arlt, Janet M Lord, Mark A Foster BMJ Open 2021;11:e040823. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/7/e040823

Transplantation of discarded livers following viability testing with normothermic machine perfusion Hynek Mergental, Richard W. Laing, Amanda J. Kirkham, M. Thamara P. R. Perera, Yuri L. Boteon, Joseph Attard, Darren Barton, Stuart Curbishley, Manpreet Wilkhu, Desley A. H. Neil, Stefan G. Hübscher, Paolo Muiesan, John R. Isaac, Keith J. Roberts, Manuel Abradelo, Andrea Schlegel, James Ferguson, Hentie Cilliers, Julian Bion, David H. Adams, Chris Morris, Peter J. Friend, Christina Yap, Simon C. Afford & Darius F. Mirza Nature Communications Volume 11, Article number: 2939 (2020) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16251-3

Liver homing of clinical grade Treg after therapeutic infusion in patients with autoimmune hepatitis. Ye Htun Oo, Susan Ackrill, Richard Cole, Lee Jenkins, Philip Anderson, Hannah C. Jeffery, Nicholas Jones, Louisa E. Jeffery, Philipp Lutz, Rebecca E. Wawman, Amrita Kaur Athwal, Jacqui Thompson, Joanna Gray, Kathy Guo, Darren Barton, Gideon M Hirschfield, Timothy Wong, Peter Guest, David H. Adams JHEP Reports (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhepr.2019.08.001

Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and autologous CD133-positive stem-cell therapy in liver cirrhosis (REALISTIC):an open-label, randomised, controlled phase 2 trial. Philip Noel Newsome, Richard Fox, Andrew L King, Darren Barton, Nwe-Ni Than, Joanna Moore, Christopher Corbett, Sarah Townsend, James Thomas, Kathy Guo, Diana Hull, Heather A Beard, Jacqui Thompson, Anne Atkinson, Carol Bienek, Neil McGowan, Neil Guha, John Campbell, Dan Hollyman, Deborah Stocken, Christina Yap, Stuart John Forbes. www.thelancet.com/gastrohep Published online November 7, 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(17)30326-6

Gene expression profiling in bladder cancer identifies potential therapeutic targets. Hussain S. A., Palmer D. H., Syn W-K.,Sacco J. J., Greensmitth R. M. D., Elmetwali T., Aachi V., Lloyd B. H., Jithesh P. V., Arrand J., Barton D. Ansari J., Sibson D. R., and James N. D. International Journal of Oncology, 2017. 50(4): p. 1147-1159.http://dx.doi.org/10.3892/ijo.2017.3893

Viability testing and transplantation of marginal livers (VITTAL) using normothermic machine perfusion: study protocol for an open-label, non-randomised, prospective, single-arm trial. Laing, R. W., Mergental, H., Yap, C., Kirkham, A., Whilku, M., Barton, D., … Mirza, D. F. (2017). BMJ Open, 7(11), e017733. http://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017733

A Multicentre, Phase II, Open-Label, Randomised Controlled Trial of Repeated Autologous Infusions of Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor Mobilised Cd133 + Bone Marrow Stem Cells in Patients with Cirrhosis P.N. Newsome, R. Fox, A. King, N. Than, J. Moore, C. Corbett, S. Townsend, D. Barton, and others DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0168-8278(16)01695-0 Journal of Hepatology, Vol. 64, Issue 2, S183–S184

Cost-effectiveness of zoledronic acid and strontium-89 as bone protecting treatments in addition to chemotherapy in patients with metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer: results from the TRAPEZE trial (ISRCTN 12808747). Andronis, L., Goranitis, I., Pirrie, S., Pope, A., Barton, D., Collins, S., Daunton, A., McLaren, D., O'Sullivan, J. M., Parker, C., Porfiri, E., Staffurth, J., Stanley, A., Wylie, J., Beesley, S., Birtle, A., Brown, J. E., Chakraborti, P., Hussain, S. A., Russell, J. M., Billingham, L. J. and James, N. D. (2016), BJU Int. doi:10.1111/bju.13549

Clinical Outcomes and Survival Following Treatment of Metastatic Castrate-Refractory Prostate Cancer With Docetaxel Alone or With Strontium-89, Zoledronic Acid, or Both The TRAPEZE Randomized Clinical Trial Nicholas D. James, PhD, FRCR, FRCP1; Sarah J. Pirrie, MSc2; Ann M. Pope, PhD2; Darren Barton, BSc2; et al JAMA Oncol. 2016;2(4):493-499. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2015.5570 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2482917

Liraglutide safety and efficacy in patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (LEAN): a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled phase 2 study Matthew James Armstrong, Pies Gaunt, Guruprasad P Aithal, Darren Barton, Diana Hull, Richard Parker, Jonathan M Hazlehurst, Kathy Guo, Lean Trial Team (7 members), Philip Newsome The Lancet Volume 387 (2016) 679-690. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00803-X

Effect of liraglutide on adipose insulin resistance and hepatitic de-novo lipogenesis in non-alcoholic steatohepatitits: sub-study of a phase 2, randomised placebo controlled trial Matthew Armstrong, Diana Hull, Kathy Guo, Darren Barton, Jinglei Yu, Jeremy Tomlinson, and others The Lancet, Vol. 387, No. 10019, p679–690 Published online: November 19, 2015: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26608256/ The Lancet, Vol. 383, S21 Published in issue: February 26, 2014

Effect of scavenger receptor BI antagonist ITX5061 in patients with hepatitis C virus infection undergoing liver transplantation Ian A Rowe, Damien C Tully, Matthew J Armstrong, Richard Parker, Kathy Guo, Darren Barton, Gene D Morse, Charles S Venuto, Colin B Ogilvie, Ditte L Hedegaard, Jeffrey F McKelvy, Flossie Wong-Staal, Todd M Allen, Peter Balfe, Jane A McKeating and David J Mutimer. Accepted manuscript online: 5 October 2015 : Liver Transplantation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4901184/

REpeated AutoLogous Infusions of STem cells In Cirrhosis (REALISTIC), a multicentre, phase II, open-label, randomised controlled trial of repeated autologous infusions of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF) mobilised CD133+ bone marrow stem cells in patients with cirrhosis: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial: A.King, D.Barton, H.A.Beard, N Than, J.Moore, C.Corbett, J.Thomas, K.Guo, I Guha, D Hollyman, C Yap, R. Fox, S.j.forbes, P.N.Newsome (manuscript ID bmjopen-2015-007700.R1)

Liraglutide Efficacy and Action in Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (LEAN): Study protocol for a Phase II multi-centre, doble-blinded randomised-controlled trial: Matthew J. Armstrong1,2*, Darren Barton, Piers Gaunt, Diana Hull, Kathy Guo, Deborah Stocken, Stephen CL. Gough, Jeremy W. Tomlinson, Rachel M. Brown7, Stefan G. Hübscher7,8, Philip N. Newsome: BMJ Open 2014;3:e003995. Doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014- 003995

Setting up a patient & public involvement panel to support research in liver disease in a NIHR Biomedical research Unit: Diana Hull, Darren Barton, Kathy Guo, Christina Russell, Bernadette Aucott, Donna Wiles: British Journal of Nursing: 11/2012