Andrew Jones MP met with Cancer Research UK scientists in Leeds last week (Friday 24 November) to learn about the world class research taking place in the region.
The MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough visited the Leeds Cancer Research UK Centre at St James’s University Hospital where he witnessed at first hand the range of groundbreaking scientific research currently being carried out.
Thanks to the generosity of its supporters, Cancer Research UK invests over £6 million a year on research in Leeds, part of an annual spend by the charity in Yorkshire of around £9 million a year, supporting the work of doctors, nurses and scientists who are dedicated to beating cancer by understanding its causes and investigating how best to prevent and treat it.
Andrew Jones MP and Dr Andrew Benest, Post doctoral research fellow in oncology and clinical research at the Leeds Cancer Research UK Centre.
Andrew Jones said:
This was a great opportunity to see some of the world class research that is being carried out here in Yorkshire. It highlighted just why it is so important to support the vital research which could make a significant difference to the 26,700 people diagnosed with cancer in Yorkshire & The Humber every year.
The Leeds Cancer Research UK Centre puts the city at the forefront of cancer research and brings direct benefits to patients across Yorkshire.
Collaboration is the key to the success of the Centre, which brings together researchers and support from Cancer Research UK, the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Scientists in the labs are sharing their expertise with doctors and nurses at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds, working together to bring the benefits of research directly to patients.
Researchers at the Centre are focusing on bowel, bladder and kidney cancers, as well as melanoma skin cancer. They also specialise in leukaemia and lymphoma, lung cancer and children’s cancers.
Local scientists’ strengths in understanding cancer biology are boosting efforts to develop new targeted treatments, and research into the genetic changes that drive cancer is sparking ideas for ways to detect the disease earlier and track how well treatment is working.
Professor Tim Bishop, head of genetic epidemiology at the University of Leeds and chair of the Leeds Cancer Research UK Centre, said:
I was really pleased to welcome Andrew to our Centre to see for himself how we take new cancer treatments ‘from the laboratory bench to the bedside’.
It was a great opportunity to show how the Centre has stimulated new ways of working and built closer links with scientists, doctors, chemists, physicists, biologists and engineers on site, working hard to bring treatments from the lab to the clinic much faster.
We are helping to give Yorkshire patients better access to the latest treatments available. It is a huge benefit for patients to be on clinical trials and we are delighted that so many have been recruited from across the region in the last year.
