New, Vital Research Funding Announced
Hopeful News News, events, dates and all things Hopeful! Issue 38 Spring / Summer 2021 enquiries@ hopeagainstcancer.org.uk 0116 270 0101
Read inside: Page 3 A farewell to Tracey Page 4 Hope Through Business news Page 6 Our Local Community supports Hope Page 9 BIG thank you goes to... And much more!
Despite the adverse environment and the task of funding the building of the new Hope Cancer Trials Centre at Leicester Royal Infirmary, Hope has recently announced and confirmed more vital funding to help our partners continue to provide life-saving research and care for local cancer patients. £40,000 will be committed this year once again in support of the work of the Hope Nurse at the new Centre. Our Hope Nurse provides extra care and support to cancer trials patients passing through the new Centre on their treatment journey. Sheila Willson from Oadby was the first patient to access the expanded and refurbished Centre. Sheila, who is receiving treatment for myeloma, has been visiting the Hope Cancer Trials Centre since June 2017. She receives weekly treatment over a five week cycle, which has continued throughout the whole pandemic. She said: “Hope’s expansion is lovely; it has more room, is very spacious and looks really nice. The Centre means a lot to me. I feel very comfortable there, and everyone is so nice and helpful.” Funding support of £15,000 per year for three years (total of £45,000) was also announced to part-fund a Hope PhD Studentship. The College of Life Sciences at the University had offered to fund two thirds of a PhD Studentship if our Centre partners were able to match fund with £15,000. With the aspirations of becoming a cancer theme in the BRC as mentioned in the CEO’s introduction, Hope is extremely keen to help the Centre expand critical basic research mass wherever possible. Matched funding is a great way of deploying our donations as it means other funding avenues are opened up by our initial investment. Now onto even better news… The Hope Cancer Trials Centre has After reopened at Leicester’s Hospitals, following a circa £1.5 million expansion. As you may know, this facility gives patients opportunities to trial new medicines to treat a range of cancers. This means more cancer trials can take place in Leicester and even more patients can benefit from access to potential treatments not currently available on the NHS. The expansion will mean that ‘early phase’ cancer trials can go from strength to strength in Leicester. Cancer treatments are rapidly changing, and the Centre is currently focused on developing research using ‘bio-specifics’, a new generation of treatments that – unlike traditional chemotherapy - target cancer while leaving other cells in the body with little or no damage. This couldn’t have been done without our fabulous Hope Supporters, who have helped to raise these crucial funds over the past year. So, for that, we thank each and every one of you! You can read more on our website!
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