A GRANT, part funded by a charity founded in Wokingham, has been made to a leading scientist seeking a cure for breast cancer.
Walk The Walk has worked with Breast Cancer Now to award a five-year fellowship to Dr Damir Varešlija from the RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences.
His £660,000 grant will allow him to investigate how gene switches in breast cancer cells might make the disease more likely to spread to the brain and to find new ways to stop this from happening.
It is hoped this research could reveal new treatments that may help both improve quality of life and extend the lives of people living with secondary breast cancer in the brain.
Between one in six and one in three patients with secondary breast cancer develop tumours in their brain. This can cause seizures, headaches, vomiting and uncoordinated movement. Treatment options are limited.
Now, Dr Varešlija and his team will try and understand different gene switches which help breast cancer spread to the brain. This insight will offer targets for new drugs, and establish whether currently available drugs might be a safe and viable option.
Furthermore, if these switches can be reversed, this may help to prevent secondary breast cancer from developing in the brain.
Dr Varešlija said: “I am thrilled and honoured to be awarded the Walk the Walk Fellowship.
“My team and I will be doing our absolute best to advance our understanding of what genes trick the brain into being a willing host for escaped breast cancer cells.
“This is an area of unmet clinical need and we are delighted that dedicated research will be invested into potentially developing our findings into treatments for the benefit of patients with brain metastatic breast cancer.”
Dr Simon Vincent, Director of Research, Support and Influencing at Breast Cancer Now, said: “We are delighted to award this fellowship in collaboration with Walk the Walk, to help address a huge area of unmet need in breast cancer research that could help stop people dying from this disease.
And Nina Barough CBE, founder and chief executive of Walk the Walk, was thrilled to be investing in the research.
She said: “To be funding our own fellowship, researching something we feel is vitally important for the advancement of cancer treatments, is an absolutely wonderful place to be.
“It feels particularly special to be doing this, at a time when cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment has been really impacted by Covid. Amid such a catastrophic situation, there is a little bud of hope, as Dr Varešlija is working fully on this project.”
She added: “The research Walk the Walk has funded previously has contributed to phenomenal leaps and bounds in terms of better understanding primary breast cancer, so that it can be treated more effectively if it’s found early enough.
“Unfortunately, that isn’t the same for secondary cancers. For the last few years, it has been a passion of mine to fund research in this area – to try and find choices for those with secondary cancers and to prevent it being the death sentence that it currently is.
“I really hope that in five years’ time, at the end of this Fellowship, that the current situation regarding secondaries will have moved on, and we will have a much better understanding of why breast cancer spreads to the brain. We can make a difference and that’s what we’re here to do”.
Anyone concerned about breast cancer can call Breast Cancer Now’s free helpline on 0808 800 6000. n For more on Walk The Walk, log on to www.walkthewalk.org
