How a gift in your Will to Cancer Research UK helps pioneering North East research
RESEARCH IS ESSENTIAL FOR NEW TESTS TO HELP THE 16,700 PEOPLE DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER EACH YEAR IN THE NORTH EAST
AROUND 16,700 people are diagnosed with cancer each year in the North East, highlighting how essential research is to find gentler treatments and new tests.
Many research projects across the UK benefit from the generosity of people leaving a gift to Cancer Research UK in their Will.
Dr Debbie Hicks is a Newcastle University Research Fellow of Molecular Survivorship. Her main area of research is childhood brain tumours, working to improve outcomes for survivors of medulloblastoma and other childhood cancers.
Dr Hicks said: “Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant childhood brain tumour.
My work involves understanding the ‘molecular pathology’ of the disease – elucidating the molecular alterations important in the development and progression of medulloblastoma, and in its response to treatment.”
“Whilst nowadays 6070% of patients survive their medulloblastoma diagnosis, the aggressive nature of cancer treatment can affect survivors’ quality of life.”
“Perhaps the most devastating impacts of the reduced quality of survival that follows brain tumour treatment are the neurocognitive deficits (IQ, attention, executive functions, etc) which render childhood survivors feeling ‘left-behind’ compared to their peers and at a disadvantage entering their teenage and adult years.”
“My research aims to not only promote survival but to also reduce the disease and burden of current treatments in medulloblastoma and other childhood cancer survivors.”
“Cancer Research UK’S funding is vitally important to our work. I was part of a team that was supported by Cancer Research UK Programme Grant funding, without which we would have not been able to make the strides we have in identifying the disease and the extent of the risks it poses that are now transitioning into medulloblastoma clinical trials.”
“Contemporary biomarker-driven clinical trials are either about to open, or currently accessible, to every child with medulloblastoma across Europe, supported by our real-time clinical and molecular testing systems.”
“On the back of this experience, I was able to establish my own programme of research; Cancer Research UK are supporting this by funding a PHD student in my group, thereby nurturing the careers of the next generation of researchers.”
“We are passionate about the work we do and its power to help children with cancer. To be given the opportunity to put this passion into practice is a privilege and a great personal honour.”
Gifts in Wills account for over a third of its life-saving research. Without this, Cancer Research UK simply would not be able to undertake all the vital research it does which could one day beat cancer.
The charity has played a role in developing 8 of the world’s top 10 cancer drugs and it helped prove the link between tobacco and cancer.
By leaving a gift in your Will, you can help keep the amazing breakthroughs coming and support this life-changing work. You could transform lives for generations to come.
Together we will beat cancer
WHILE we all hope some of the strict lockdown rules will be ended soon, that hasn’t happened yet.
Some MPS are concerned about the impact lockdowns have had on people in care.
That includes older people in care homes and people with disabilities who are cared for, as well as young people.
They have been unable to receive visitors, and in some cases this has been hard to deal with.
MPS have signed a Commons motion calling on the Government to legislate to ensure that visits are able to take place, subject to individualised risk assessments.
They said they were “deeply concerned about the acute distress many older and disabled people and younger people in residential care and their families are experiencing by being prevented from visiting.”
MPS to back the motion include Hartlepool MP Mike Hill, South Shields MP
Emma Lewell-buck and Jarrow MP Kate Osborne.
They said: “A failure to adopt an individualised approach to the safety of visits risks breaching the right of patients, residents and their families to family life”, although they said this must be balanced with the duty to keep people safe.