05.11.19
Glasgow scientists leading next generation of radiotherapy research
Expert scientists in Glasgow have been awarded a huge funding pot from Cancer Research UK to develop new radiotherapy technologies and trial techniques that could save the lives of cancer sufferers in the future.
Over the next five years, £3.5m in funding will go towards the Cancer Research UK Glasgow Centre accelerating their efforts into radiotherapy research.
Glasgow has been chosen to be one of only seven centres of excellence, forming a UK-wide network that will help to find pioneering technologies in fighting cancer. Centres will also be located in Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds and London.
This comes as part of the largest ever investment in radiotherapy research is made by Cancer Research UK who are investing a total of £56m into the cause.
The charity supported some of the earliest research into the treatment of cancer with radiation and lead the way for the first use of radiotherapy in the 1920s, which now is used to treat over 130,000 patients in the UK every year.
The funding in Glasgow will help researchers develop and test radiotherapy-drug combinations and focus on hard-to-treat cancers and cancers with poor prognosis such as lung, brain and pancreatic.
Professor Anthony Chalmers, chair of Clinical Oncology at the University of Glasgow said:
“We are very proud that Glasgow has been awarded this grant to bring the next generation of radiotherapy treatments to patients sooner. The funding will transform our ability to develop new radiotherapy technologies that will help more people beat cancer, while causing fewer side effects so that patients will have a better quality of life after treatment.”
“An important fact about radiotherapy is that it can cure many cancers. In my view, this ability isn’t given enough attention. Our focus will be on patients with cancers that are too advanced or are too close to critical healthy tissues for us to cure them with current protocols. In the long-term we hope that this funding will help us develop new treatment strategies so that more people with lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, head and neck cancer and brain tumours will actually be cured of their disease.”
Image Source: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde