Rate My Professor James Wason

Professor James Wason is Professor of Biostatistics in the Population Health Sciences Institute within the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University, where he has been based since July 2017. In December 2021, he began an NIHR Research Professorship. A prominent statistician, his research centres on advancing biostatistics to enhance clinical trial efficiency through superior design and analysis methods. Core interests encompass adaptive designs for clinical trials, techniques for integrating biomarkers to stratify patients by treatment response, and refined analyses of composite endpoints incorporating continuous components. His programme particularly aims to optimise trials addressing immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Wason leads a dedicated research group that develops innovative statistical methodologies and applies them in practical clinical trial settings, fostering collaboration between theoretical advancements and real-world implementation.

Professor Wason contributes statistically to numerous impactful clinical studies. Key recent publications include 'Metformin and physical performance in older people with probable sarcopenia and physical prefrailty or frailty in England (MET-PREVENT): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial' in The Lancet Healthy Longevity (2025), 'Mentalisation-based treatment for antisocial personality disorder in males convicted of an offence on community probation in England and Wales (Mentalization for Offending Adult Males, MOAM): a multicentre, assessor-blinded, randomised controlled trial' in The Lancet Psychiatry (2025), 'COBALT: A Confirmatory Trial of Obeticholic Acid in Primary Biliary Cholangitis With Placebo and External Controls' in the American Journal of Gastroenterology (2025), and 'Cognitive behavioural therapy skills using a smartphone app for subthreshold depression among adults in the community: the RESiLIENT randomised controlled trial' in Nature Medicine (2025). Additional significant works are 'Efficient stage-wise allocation ratios in multi-arm multi-stage designs' in Contemporary Clinical Trials (2025), 'Utilising high-dimensional data in randomised clinical trials: a review of methods and practice' in Research Methods in Medicine & Health Sciences (2024), 'Pulmonary Hypertension: Intensification and Personalization of Combination Rx (PHoenix): A phase IV randomized trial' in Pulmonary Circulation (2024), 'Graves-PCD: protocol for a randomised, dose-finding, adaptive trial of the plasma cell-depleting agent daratumumab in severe Graves' disease' in BMJ Open (2024), and 'Operational complexities in international clinical trials: a systematic review of challenges and proposed solutions' in BMJ Open (2024). These contributions have notably advanced clinical trial design in precision medicine, rare diseases, and complex patient populations.