About

The Melbourne Children’s Trials Centre (MCTC) is a collaboration between the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, The Royal Children’s Hospital and The University of Melbourne. MCTC is generously funded by The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

MCTC was established in 2014 with the aim of supporting the whole of the RCH/MCRI Campus to deliver excellence in design and conduct of all clinical trials. The guiding principles of MCTC are quality, efficiency and innovation. 

On the RCH/MCRI Campus Commercially Sponsored Trials are run through one of our MCTC supported CST Nodes or directly within MCTC. Similarly, Investigator Initiated Trials are run through MCTC supported MCRI Research Groups or within MCTC. MCTC supports researchers doing both Commercially Sponsored Trials and Investigator Initiated Trials across a very diverse range of interventions, settings and patient or subject groups. MCTC provides training. mentorship and all levels of advice, assistance, collaboration, as well as staff and resources for trials. MCTC supports all steps; from design through to closure. 

MCTC works closely with the Clinical Research Development Office and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit to provide the most innovative trial designs such as adaptive platform trials and embedded trials. MCTC is also facilitating novel therapy trials such as gene therapies and increasing numbers of early phase trials in children.  MCTC collaborates with other trial centres across the Melbourne Academic Centre of Health (MACH), The Australian Network of Paediatric Trials Centre (ANPTC) and with our international partners.  

The MCTC enables researchers to bring new and novel therapies to children earlier and generate knowledge to improve healthcare for all children.