The Clinical Trial Services Unit (CTSU) is a medical research institute within Oxford University in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.
It primarily conducts large scale clinical trials (phase III) and epidemiological studies of chronic diseases, especially cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 and vascular conditions.
It is located in the Richard Doll

Richard Doll

Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll CH OBE FRS was a British physiologist who became the foremost epidemiologist of the 20th century, turning the subject into a rigorous science. He was a pioneer in research linking smoking to health problems...

 Building (RDB) on the Old Road Campus, Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

.

History

The unit developed from a research team originally formed by Richard Doll.
It was founded in 1975 and is led by the joint co-directors Richard Peto

Richard Peto

Sir Richard Peto FRS is Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford.He attended Taunton's School in Southampton and subsequently studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University....

 and Rory Collins

Rory Collins

Sir Rory Edwards Collins is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Clinical Trial Service Unit within the University of Oxford. His work has been in the establishment of large-scale epidemiological studies of the causes, prevention and treatment of heart attacks, other vascular disease, and...

. Currently (2008) there are approximately 200 staff working directly within the unit at the Richard Doll Building, and many hundreds more at satellite centres around the world.

Major projects

Major clinical trials run by the CTSU include Isis, the Heart Protection Study

Heart Protection Study

The Heart Protection Study was a large randomized controlled trialrun by the Clinical Trial Service Unit, and fundedby the Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation in the United Kingdom...

,
Search and Sharp. The unit has also played key roles in the Kadoorie Study of Chronic Disease and the UK Biobank

UK Biobank

UK Biobank is a large long-term biobank study in the United Kingdom which is investigating the respective contributions of genetic predisposition and environmental exposure to the development of disease...

project.