Padbury-based charity Brain Tumour Research has launched three new partnerships with UK universities to further its plan of creating a network of brain tumour research centres throughout the country.
The announcement paves the way for a £20 million investment in brain tumour research over the next five years.
Having already established the UK’s first centre of excellence dedicated solely to scientific research into all types of brain tumour at the University of Portsmouth, the charity has now formed partnerships with Queen Mary University of London working with UCL Institute of Neurology, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (London) and Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry.
The charity says that with secure long-term funding covering the key salaried positions within these centres, the researchers will be freed from the limitations of applying for one project grant after another and instead will be able to pursue the continuous research needed by the scientists and clinicians working in this underfunded field.
A total of 150 people headed to Speaker’s House last Tuesday for the launch.
Among them were Padbury resident and founder of Brain Tumour Research and Ali’s Dream Sue Farrington Smith and her husband Justin, Calvert Green residents Andy and Figen Rawlinson, who lost their young son Taylan to a brain tumour, and 22-year-old James Crossley from Steeple Claydon, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of nine.