The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Campaigner led the way in fighting disease
Dr Jacqui Wood led the Ninewells Cancer Campaign for 20 years before succumbing to the disease she had spent her lifetime raising money to fight against in 2011.
The original campaign began in 1991 with the aim of raising £1 million to attract leading cancer researchers to Dundee to develop new and better treatments.
Dr Wood formed an unlikely alliance with Dennis the Menace as she charmed people into putting their hands in their pockets.
Campaigners raised money in a variety of ways, including fun runs, coffee mornings, sponsored silences and head shaves in local pubs.
Dr Wood set a number of golden rules, the most notable being an insistence that every penny went to the campaign.
It went on to raise more than £20m by the time the Jacqui Wood Cancer Centre opened in 2013, named in honour of her outstanding contribution.
Its staff explore everything from the basic biology of cancer cells to specific forms of the disease.
There are a number of young researchers and PhD students who might have struggled to get a first foot on the ladder without the support of the work Dr Wood championed. She died at home in Broughty Ferry at the age of 65, having raised around £18m, however friends and family have continued her work, raising millions more.
Dr Wood moved to Dundee in 1985 and was appointed a Justice of the Peace in the city the following year.
She moved to the Angus bench in 1996 where she remained until ill health forced her to retire in 2009.
She became chairman of the Ninewells Cancer Campaign when it was founded in 1991.
She was also a trustee of the Leng Charitable Trust and was on the board of Dundee College.
She was made an MBE in 1998 and received honorary doctorates from the universities of Dundee, in 1999, Abertay, in 2005, and St Andrews, in 2009.
She was also appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the City of Dundee in 2005.
Dr Wood approached the honours given to her with modesty and gratitude, always stressing the part played by others, and never lost her sense of humour.
The irony of receiving a diagnosis for ovarian cancer in 2007 was not lost on her. Her friends and family said she continued to approach the future with her customary forthright spirit.