Dr Abby O'Connell

Abby joined Exeter Clinical Trials Unit (ExeCTU) as a trial manager in November 2020 and was appointed as senior trial manager in December 2021. At ExeCTU Abby has managed the following studies:

• The BRACE trial – an international multi-centre randomised controlled trial comparing the BCG vaccine with placebo to reduce the impact of COVID-19 in healthcare workers.
• The COVID-Nurse study – a cluster-randomised study of a guideline of fundamental nursing care for hospitalised COVID-19 patients.
• The RecoverED study (programme grant) – developing and testing a novel multi-disciplinary rehabilitation package for older adults who experienced an episode of delirium while in hospital.
• The CHORUS trial - a randomised controlled trial of prednisolone versus placebo for people with fibrotic hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

As senior trial manager, Abby is responsible for a wide range of clinical trial activities including protocol development, ethics and regulatory applications, case report form design, NHS site set-up, training clinical research staff on trial procedures, monitoring, trial close out, reporting KPIs to stakeholders and engaging in patient and public involvement activities among many other tasks. 

Abby supports members of the ExeCTU trial management team as a line manager and supports with recruitment of new staff into the team, as well as providing senior support to other trial managers in the set-up and running of their trials.  She also supports the development of CTU trial managers, including delivering modules on site set-up and trial close out for the CTU trial coordinators course. Abby set up and manages an internal seminar series at ExeCTU as a mechanism to share knowledge between multidisciplinary teams.

Abby is involved in external collaborations within the clinical trials network. She has collaborated on the design of a Study Within a Trial (SWAT) to test a decision aid for proxy decision makers who are asked to consider whether their loved one who lacks mental capacity would wish to take part in a research study (led by Victoria Shepherd at the centre for Trials Research, University of Cardiff). Abby is also part of a UKCRC Network task and finish group looking at regulatory compliant processes for moving from paper-based to electronic Serious Adverse Event (SAE) reporting.

Before working at ExeCTU, Abby was a trial manager at the Bristol Trials Centre, University of Bristol, where she managed a wide portfolio of studies including ophthalmology CTIMPs, diagnostic test accuracy, emergency medicine and surgical studies.

Prior to embarking on a career in clinical trial management, Abby was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bristol, specialising in the research into the immunopathology of type 1 diabetes.