£16min funding to help boost cancer research

SCOTTISH scientists are to receive a £16 million boost after a cancer charity announced plans to invest in theirwork.

Cancer Research UK is to give £8 million each to its centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh over the next five years.

The grants are part of a large investment in its UK centres, with £190m promised in a total for 13 research centres over the same period.

A particular focus of its Edinburgh centre is research into brain tumours, with the goal of developing better treatments.

The Glasgow centre is said to be a world-leader in pancreatic cancer research.

Survival among patients is low but the clinical research could play a key role in improving patients’ chances of beating the disease.

Every year, about 30,000 people in Scotland are told they have cancer and trends predict the number is likely to rise to almost 35,000 in 2016-2020.

A key part of the £16m funding will involve training the next generation of cancer researchers, including 30 PhD students from both cities.

Professor Margaret Frame, science director at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh centre, said: “This award represents a critical investment in the research infrastructure at Edinburgh, equipping us with the key laboratory and clinical tools needed to advance the understanding and treatment of cancer for people in Scotland and beyond.”

Professor Owen Sansom, interim director at the Cancer Research UKBeatson Institute in Glasgow, said: “This award means we will be able to further develop our work in translational research, getting cutting-edge discoveries from the laboratory to patients, and learning as much as possible from patients to initiate new research.” GOLF club members who voted against allowing women to join have been banned from sitting on a park bench “by order of the female population of Edinburgh”.

A plaque spotted on a bench in the city’s Princes Street Gardens was in retaliation to the Muirfield vote rejecting female membership earlier this year. The historic East Lothian club voted on female membership in May at the end of a two-year consultation but failed to get the two-thirds majority of its 648 eligible voters required to change policy. The decision was greeted with anger and it was stripped of the right to host the Open Championship.

The bench plaque reads: “The members of Muirfield Golf Club are hereby excluded from sitting on this bench.By order of the female population of Edinburgh.”

Katherine Watson, right, a medical student from Kelso and her friend Ellie Thomson sat the bench. She said: “It’s drawing attention to Muirfield. As far as protests go I think the bench is quite nicely styled.”