We are a network of medical imaging experts and scientists building a unified infrastructure to accelerate the development and translation of imaging biomarkers into clinical trials and the NHS.

Our mission

To transform healthcare and outcomes for cancer patients by accelerating the delivery of highest quality medical imaging biomarkers.

Our objectives

Provide a UK national infrastructure for the development of quality assured cancer imaging biomarkers for clinical use.

Develop an image repository for secure storage and sharing of clinical imaging datasets and harmonise image acquisition and analysis tools.

Establish unified NCITA contracts between institutions to reduce start-up times for clinical trials and improve trial efficiency.

Engage with industry, the NHS, other academic partners, funders and regulatory agencies to enhance collaborative work between clinicians and scientists and establish consensus guidelines on the translational pathway for MRI and nuclear medicine biomarkers for adoption into clinical practice.

Provide ongoing training to ensure skills and expertise of the NCITA infrastructure team are sustainable.

Our journey

NCITA is a national UK multisite consortium funded by a 5-year CRUK Accelerator Award, which brings together the complementary strengths of nine partner medical imaging institutions.

NCITA builds on the previous Cancer Imaging Centres (CIC) initiative (2008-2018) which was supported by CRUK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) . The CIC initiative
 was instrumental in driving innovation in imaging biomarker research in areas including oxygen enhanced MRI, VERDICT MRI, GlucoCEST MRI and novel tracer development in both PET and MRI.

NCITA strives to build on the CIC initiative through the development of standardised imaging techniques and harmonised image acquisition, processing and analysis tools for the evaluation and qualification of cancer imaging biomarkers using multicentre clinical trials.