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Secondary1st is delighted to announce that it has just awarded a grant to a project led by Professor Simak Ali, who is Professor of Molecular Endocrine Oncology at Imperial College London.
Up to 80% of breast cancer diagnoses are ER-positive and many can be treated successfully with hormone therapy. However some ER-positive tumours stop responding after a time and can return, grow and spread. Professor Ali and his team are working to understand how changes in the ER gene help breast cancer cells grow despite hormone therapy. These changes can also help the disease become more aggressive and spread. This is secondary breast cancer and there is currently no cure.
The Charity will be funding a full-time post-doctoral researcher working with laboratory techniques such as epigenomic and transcriptomic profiling, involving the detailed study of changes in cancer cells to produce information on the consequences of these changes. Professor Ali’s team have already found that not all changes in the ER gene affect breast tumour cells in the same way. ER gene changes fall into two groups based on their impact on other genes and the team want to reach a better understanding of the differences between these two groups, leading to new and more effective ways to treat ER-positive secondary breast cancer.
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Dom and Paul are going on a seven-day journey from Essex to the Outer Hebrides and back so that they can cycle the Hebridean Way and raise money for Secondary1st. They will spend four days driving over 1000 miles and ten hours on ferry trips between the islands, with three days to cycle over 150 miles across the islands carrying everything they need on their bikes. They will cycle through some spectacular scenery from white shell beaches to rugged hills of Lewisian gneiss taking two ferries and six causeways to cross between the islands. The Hebridean Way starts from the island of Vatersay at the southern tip of the archipelago and crosses Barra, Eriksay, South Uist, Benbecula, Grimsay, Nort Uist, Berneray and Harris to the Butt of Lewis lighthouse in the far north, a journey of 185 miles or297 km.
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Ruth decided that she wanted to do something different for the weekend. So she climbed the Three Peaks, enjoyed the beautiful scenery and raised money for Secondary1st.
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It seemed a long time ahead when Nolan signed up for it but, after several months of getting up at 5am to train, his cycle ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats is only four weeks away. He will ride through some his favourite places on a journey of over 1,000 miles which will include the equivalent of cycling up Mount Everest twice. From the start at Land’s End his route will take him over Dartmoor, across then Severn Bridge into Wales, through Herefordshire and Shropshire into the Lake District. Then he will cross into Scotland, cycle over the Trossachs, past Loch Lomond, across the Grampians to Inverness and then through the Scottish Highlands to John O’Groats, all in a fortnight.
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Seth Coffelt, who leads the team at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Glasgow which has received funding for the past three years through the generosity of Secondary1st fundraisers and donors, has been appointed Professor of Cancer Immunology at the University of Glasgow. Professor Coffelt and his team have been studying the relationship between cancer and the immune system. Among various healthy cells, immune cells have emerged as powerful instigators of metastasis formation but, at the same time, immune cells can also prevent cancer cells from spreading.
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In 2020 in the middle of the pandemic Angela, who had been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer the previous year, completed the 2.6 challenge by walking for 26 miles on her old cross trainer. Two years later her son John finished the 3 Peaks Challenge to raise money for Secondary1st. This year John has completed the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge with six other people to raise more money for Secondary1st. In total they walked for 24 miles/38.6km, climbed 5200ft/1585m and completed the round trip in 12 hours. The three peaks, Pen-y-Ghent (694 m), Whernside (736m) and Ingleborough (723m), which are part of the Pennine Range, are set in a triangle in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales National Park with the River Ribble between them.
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Just three weeks after finishing in the Brighton Marathon Superhero Tim completed the London Marathon. Marathons, skydiving, fitness challenges… there seems no end to the adventures Tim undertakes to raise money for Secondary1st. He is one of our all-time superheroes.
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A team of scientists at King’s College London has developed an Artificial Intelligence model which analyses immune responses in the lymph nodes to predict the likelihood of developing secondary breast cancer for patients with triple negative breast cancer. Lymph nodes are small bean-shaped structures that are part of the body’s immune system. They filter substances that travel through the lymphatic fluid, and they contain lymphocytes or white blood cells that help the body fight infection and disease. There are hundreds of lymph nodes found throughout the body and they are connected to one another by lymph vessels. Clusters of lymph nodes are found in the neck, axilla (underarm), chest, abdomen, and groin and they are also known as lymph glands. This research which was published in “The Journal of Pathology”, was led by Dr Anita Grigoriadis at the School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Studies. The AI model was tested on over 5,000 lymph nodes donated to biobanks and there are plans to further test it at other European centres to further increase its precision.
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Last year Nolan rode a zipwire to raise money for Secondary1st. This year he’s planning to undertake a more down to earth challenge. In September he will cycle more than 1000 km, riding all the way from Land’s End to John O’Groats, travelling from one end of the country to the other. He is training hard to prepare for this new adventure.
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Not content with skydiving, running a marathon and organizing a fitness challenge to raise money for Secondary1st our superhero Tim ran in the Brighton Marathon and then after a gap of only three weeks he’s going to run in the London Marathon. He really is a superhero.