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Philip Edge

Areas of interest

  • All cancer science and clinical developments.
  • Colorectal cancers.
  • Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) and quality of life.
  • Psychological impacts of cancer survival.

Philip Edge

Experience: Rectal Cancer

Philip’s experience

My work has always been associated with research organisations, starting with degrees in the life sciences, and then employment as a scholarly publisher, first in physics, then medicine and biology.  

Fifteen years ago (in my 50s) I was diagnosed with rectal cancer and treated with radiotherapy, chemotherapy and multiple surgical interventions over a period of 12 months. These experiences changed my life in many ways and, learning of PPI, I saw this as a way to bring benefit to medical research and to patients and other participants in medical research.

Experience with cancer research

I became involved with the Patients Active in Research (PAIR) group of the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (OxBRC). This then led on to membership of two NIHR panels assessing applications for research funding – the Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) panel of the Central Commissioning Facility (CCF), and the Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship panel of the Trainee Coordinating Centre (TCC). I have also been a member of the Public Involvement Virtual Network (PIVIN) of NETSCC, a Centre of the NIHR.

Until July 2017 I was also a member of the Oxford Brookes University Research Ethics Committee.

Being a patient, and talking to medical practitioners as a patient, gave me new insights into the complexities of medical work and medical research. It is this that has led me into PPI and I hope to help to bring together researcher and patient perspectives to benefit the whole research process.