13.01.20
£5m fundraising boost for Re-Write cancer campaign
The University of Manchester has been awarded £5m from The Wolfson Foundation to fund the £20m gap in fundraising for the new world-class cancer centre which is under construction in Manchester.
The Wolfson Foundation is an independent charity that supports and promotes excellence in the fields of science, health, education and the arts and humanities.
The new centre will formulate the largest group of scientists, doctors and nurses in Europe to work together and push progress for cancer patients. The new facility is due to open in 2022 and will be twice the size of the Paterson building which was damaged in a fire back in 2017.
The £5m will go towards the Re-Write Cancer campaign, a £20m joint fundraising appeal from the University of Manchester, Cancer Research UK and The Christie Charitable Fund, which aims to help meet the cost of a new £150 million cancer research facility.
Construction will begin in the same location where the Paterson building stood, which was home to the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute and other research teams from The University of Manchester.
The new building will be joint onto The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, allowing collaboration between the partners and enable Manchester to lead the world in recruiting patients to clinical trials within a decade.
Trials like this are essential to find out if new treatments are safe and better than current treatments. This could result in more patients receiving new cancer treatments leading to improved outcomes and survival rates.
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of The University of Manchester, said: “We are extremely grateful to The Wolfson Foundation for this incredible boost to our Re-Write Cancer fundraising campaign. This gift is testament to the high regard in which the University, in partnership with The Christie and Cancer Research UK, is held internationally in cancer research.”