Michael Clarke

Biography

Mike Clarke is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery in Trinity College Dublin and Director of the UK Cochrane Centre. He has considerable experience in the conduct and methodology of randomised trials and systematic reviews, and in teaching about health services research. Mike was awarded a first class BA in Chemistry at the University of Oxford in 1984. This degree included a one-year thesis on the history of drug abuse, which led to a D.Phil on the history of suicide in England and Wales, with special emphasis on the use of poisons. From 1989, Mike worked at the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in Oxford on collaborative overviews of cancer treatments. In these, individual patient data are collected and analysed for all participants in relevant trials. The largest of the projects concerns the treatment of operable breast cancer and has provided reliable estimates of the effects of a variety of treatments, which influence the care of women with breast cancer worldwide. In April 1999, he took up the new post of Associate Director (Research) at the UK Cochrane Centre, which is part of the National Institute for Health Research. He became Director of the Centre in October 2002. In 2007, Mike moved to Dublin where he is Adjunct Professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, and he continues to work in both Dublin and Oxford. Mike has wide experience in the conduct of large multicentre randomised trials and systematic reviews. He is actively involved with trials in pre-eclampsia, subarachnoid haemorrhage, maternity care, breast cancer and poisoning - each of which are among the largest ever randomised trials in these conditions. He is an author on more than 30 systematic reviews covering a wide range of health care research, including treatments for cancer, methodology, and risk factors for stroke. He has been part of the faculty for the University of Oxford's MSc in Evidence Based Health Care since the course began and was Acting Academic Director in 2007-2008. He developed the Randomised Trials and the Systematic Reviews elective modules for this MSc and continues to teach and examine both. Mike has supervised five successful PhD students: at the University of Oxford (3), Open University and University of Sydney. He is currently supervising four D.Phil students at the University of Oxford and two PhD students at Trinity College Dublin. He has also supervised more than 40 students on the University of Oxford's MSc on Evidence Based Health Care. He has examined D.Phil/PhD students at the University of Oxford (2), University of Liverpool (1), Sydney University (1), and the University of York (1); and the dissertations of approximately 25 students on the afore-mentioned MSc on Evidence Based Health Care. He was Chair of the Examining Board for this MSc and the associated Diploma from 2002 to 2005; and was external examiner for the MSc in Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Birmingham from 2001 to 2005. Mike received the title Professor of Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Oxford in October 2004, in recognition of seniority and distinction. He is a Visiting Professor of the Evidence Based Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology Centre of the West China School of Medicine in Chengdu, home of the Chinese Cochrane Centre, and a Honorary Professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery in Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the last 20 years, Mike has been an author of more than 200 papers and book chapters.

Research Interest

Breast cancer Randomised trials Systematic reviews Health services research Knowledge translation and brokerage