Professor Karapetis has been the principal investigator on over 160 clinical trials. His interest in clinical research developed following a research fellowship at Guy’s Hospital in London. He has established research interests in the areas of lung cancer, gastro-intestinal malignancy, molecular targeted therapies, predictive biomarkers, epidemiology and clinical research methodology.
He is an active contributor to clinical research conducted through the Australasian Gastrointestinal Trial Group (AGITG). He was the principal investigator for the AGITG for the CO.17 clinical trial and he led the K-ras biomarker research from this study. The findings from this study had a global impact on clinical practice in the management of colorectal cancer. The associated NEJM publication was nominated as one of the 5 key medical publications of 2008 by the Lancet. He continues to research the clinical impact of predictive biomarkers and is currently leading an international collaboration exploring the role of several molecular biomarkers in colorectal cancer.