CST Emerging Trialist Award 2022

We were pleased to announce Dr Wei Lee as the winner of the CST Emerging Trialist Award 2022 at this years PaCCSC & CST Annual Research Forum, which took place in Sydney on 15 and 16 March 2023.

Each year, we offer the CST Emerging Trialist Award to recognise and celebrate the outstanding achievements and contributions of emerging clinical trials researchers.

The award is given to a CST member who has undertaken research in cancer symptoms as a lead or participating investigator in their first or second clinical trial. Nominees can be from any health discipline and may be a student, early-career researcher, or mid-career researcher. They will have also achieved a significant milestone in their research such as funding, ethics approval, recruitment, publication or presentation. 

Wei was nominated for his work as Coordinating Principal Investigator on the Subcutaneous Ketamine Infusion in Palliative Care Patients with Major Depressive Disorder (SKIPMDD) pilot phase 2 feasibility study.

Wei brought together an investigator team including consumers, obtained funding to support the trial ($172,500 research scholarship and top-up award), and drove successful completion in 2022. He was also offered the opportunity to attend the Australia & Asia Pacific Oncology Research Development Workshop.

Wei’s passion for improving outcomes for patients with Major Depressive Disorder and Cancer at end of life also came through with him leading a body of work in the management and clinician experience of depression in dying patients, which will support dissemination of the trial findings with five first author peer-reviewed publications.

Wei’s work has provided us some important methodological learnings for clinical trials for people living with cancer with short prognosis.

Congratulations to Wei on this wonderful achievement!