Our kick-off meeting on 12th January 2021 marked the exciting launch of the ChromaDose project. Although it was remote, this didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our 26 partners and collaborators who joined us for the two hour event.
Stefan Guldin and Gareth Veal co-led the event, with the support of industrial partner, Alaric Taylor, and project manager, Jugal Suthar, to provide an overview of the ChromaDose development plan.
A snapshot of some of the attendees at the ChromaDose kick-off event
ChromaDose brings together UK patients, doctors and researchers for 30-months, to develop a bedside drug monitoring technology, enabling optimal dosing in childhood cancer. An automated desktop device will provide a universal platform that conducts rapid testing with our disposable medicine-specific cartridge. We hope to achieve this with the support of our industrial partner Vesynta Ltd. ChromaDose’s mission is to ensure anthracycline safety and improve patient experiences by alleviating dose-related side effects that currently reduce the quality of life for children
After running through the expected outputs of the project over the next 30-months we opened discussion up to the floor. First, feedback from pre-award public patient involvement (PPI) that was integral to the study design and future technology development, was delivered to the consortium. This received significant interest from partners, who endorsed ChromaDose's comprehensive PPI plans as essential in ensuring improved patient experiences and a truly translational innovation.
Then, utilising virtual break-out rooms, the consortium was split into two groups to discuss COVID-related risks to stakeholder engagement and the technology roadmap respectively, along with mitigation measures. The lively discussions that ensued were testament to the sincere interest and involvement opportunities of all partners. As a result, arrangements were made to move engagement sessions to online platforms in the short-term. The development of the technology is predicted to be unaffected, meaning no delay in ChromaDose's goals to deliver patient benefit.
As the meeting drew to a close, there was a resoundingly positive response from those in attendance. The enthusiasm of our partners will undoubtedly drive high quality research and development as we embark on the next phase of the project.
Thank you for reading our first blog post. If you are interested in hearing about ChromaDose’s latest events and results, please subscribe to our newsletter.