Our Christmas Message

Thank you for another year of inspirational support. Your loyalty is much appreciated and so important for our vital work.

Campaigning

Earlier this year, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock MP, was questioned by a Parliamentary Committee about progress for funding for research into brain tumours. This stemmed from our 2015 e-petition on this topic and we are glad to see that Parliament is keeping up the pressure on the government to improve outcomes for brain tumour patients and their families.

Over 60 Parliamentarians showed their support for the brain tumour community during our Wear A Hat Day event in Westminster. In the recent general election, we also received over 120 pledges of support from prospective MPs. 

Fundraising

2019 has been an amazing year of fundraising – In March everyone went hattastic and raised over £300,000 in the hattiest day ever! With your help we’ll do even better in 2020. We’ve had some incredibly dedicated runners including those who ran the arduous Virgin Money London Marathon who raised over £315,000 between them. A huge thank you for everyone who ran and to everyone who came to cheer on the day. It was lovely to see you all!

Our Walk of Hopes stretched from Loch Lomond to Bristol attracted hundreds of people to walk in our pink t-shirts on day at the end of September, raising over £60,000. Seeing so many of you enjoying the late summer sun (in parts!) was really humbling. Finally, a huge thank you to everyone who took their own challenge either at work or by running, cycling, hosting friends and family, wing walking and by simply making a donation. We couldn’t carry on funding sustainable research and influencing government and larger charities without you.

Research

A notable accolade in 2019 was delivered to Principal Investigator at our Plymouth Research Centre, Professor Oliver Hanemann, who was invited to present at the prestigious annual meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) meeting held in Phoenix, US. Alongside specific sessions on low grade tumours and meningiomas, the focus of the Plymouth centre, Oliver’s presentation was on exciting developments within liquid biopsies. A liquid biopsy is a test done to look for cancer cells, or for pieces of DNA from tumour cells, that are in the blood and could potentially be used to help find cancer at an earlier stage.