{"entity":{"id":"rakesh-heer","kind":"person","name":"Rakesh Heer","aka":[],"tldr":"The Imperial urologist who is research lead on TRANSFORM and joint chief investigator of the trial asking whether taking the lymph nodes out during a prostatectomy does any good.","summary":"Rakesh Heer is Chair of Urology at Imperial College London, where he works alongside Hashim Ahmed on the college's prostate screening and diagnosis programme. He is research lead on TRANSFORM, the multi-arm screening trial funded jointly by Prostate Cancer UK and the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and joint chief investigator with Krishna Narahari of ELIPSE, an NIHR-funded randomised trial of radical prostatectomy with or without pelvic lymph node dissection in high-risk localised disease, sponsored by Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. ELIPSE is the kind of question British surgical trials exist to answer: a step that is done because it has always been done, tested against not doing it.","asOf":"2026-09-25","links":[{"label":"Imperial College London profiles","url":"https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/r.heer"}],"tags":["prostate","trialist","uk"],"related":["hashim-ahmed","mark-emberton"],"cancers":["prostate","prostate-high-risk"],"sections":["surgery","early-detection"],"technologies":["robotic-surgery"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["imperial-cancer-centre"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":["transform-prostate"],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Chair of Urology and Consultant Urological Surgeon, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London","institutionId":"imperial-cancer-centre","specialisms":["Urological cancer surgery","Surgical trials","Prostate cancer screening"],"profiles":[{"label":"Imperial College London profiles","url":"https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/r.heer"}],"papers":[]},"route":"/people/rakesh-heer/","neighbours":{"person":[{"id":"hashim-ahmed","kind":"person","name":"Hashim U. Ahmed","route":"/people/hashim-ahmed/"},{"id":"mark-emberton","kind":"person","name":"Mark Emberton","route":"/people/mark-emberton/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"prostate-high-risk","kind":"cancer","name":"Localised prostate cancer, high and very high risk","route":"/cancers/prostate-high-risk/"},{"id":"prostate","kind":"cancer","name":"Prostate cancer","route":"/cancers/prostate/"}],"section":[{"id":"early-detection","kind":"section","name":"Early Detection & Screening","route":"/fronts/early-detection/"},{"id":"surgery","kind":"section","name":"Surgery & Interventional","route":"/fronts/surgery/"}],"technology":[{"id":"robotic-surgery","kind":"technology","name":"Robotic & minimally invasive surgery","route":"/technologies/robotic-surgery/"}],"institution":[{"id":"imperial-cancer-centre","kind":"institution","name":"Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust / Imperial College London Cancer Research","route":"/institutions/imperial-cancer-centre/"}],"trial":[{"id":"transform-prostate","kind":"trial","name":"TRANSFORM","route":"/trials/transform-prostate/"}]}}