Robert Simes

Biography

Professor Robert (John) Simes is a medical oncologist, clinical epidemiologist and biostatistician, and international leader in clinical trials research with an outstanding track record of leading and contributing to major international clinical trials that have influenced clinical practice and policy. He is Director of the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre (CTC), which he founded in 1988 after returning from Harvard University, where he studied Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. His research interests have covered evaluating more effective treatments for cancer and cardiovascular disease as well as developing improved methods in clinical trials design, quality-of-life assessment and integrating evidence from several trials to improve clinical decision making. His research includes several seminal contributions of high impact. He developed the Simes test, a multiple hypothesis statistical testing method that has underpinned the development of a number of other such methods. He has played a leadership role in several major clinical trials in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neonatal medicine, which have led to gains in survival and better health outcomes through more effective care. As Director of Sydney Catalyst Translational Cancer Research Centre, Professor Simes co-leads a consortium of over 400 cancer researchers and clinicians in NSW undertaking translational research in cancer with the purpose of effecting clinical policy and improving patient outcomes. He has helped establish/expand several clinical trial networks including the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group (AGITG), the ANZ Breast Cancer Trials Group, and the Cooperative Trials Group in NeuroOncology (COGNO), and recently, the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance to support all investigator-led clinical trial networks in Australia. Professor Simes received the 2009 Distinguished Harvard Alum Award (Biostatistics) from Harvard University and the 2010 Medical Oncology Group of Australia Cancer Achievement Award for most outstanding cancer research. He has recently been elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Research Interest

At the NHMRC CTC, Professor Simes co-leads a team of researchers that have collaborated on over 100 multicentre clinical trials with 70,000 participants, resulting in major advances in health care. He has played key roles in: (a) the LIPID trial demonstrating survival benefits with pravastatin in 9,014 patients with CHD, which changed national and international guidelines; (b) the FIELD trial demonstrating fenofibrate-associated reductions in microvascular complications in 9,795 patients with diabetes; (c) multiple clinical trials in breast, gastro-intestinal, genitourinary and other cancers that assessed chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery and novel targeted therapies and have influenced current practice and ongoing research; (d) studies evaluating optimal use of treatments in neonatal medicine including the BOOST-2 trial; and (e) the demonstration that aspirin is effective and cost-saving in preventing recurrent venous thrombo-embolic disease.