Yorkshire Cancer Research to grant over GBP1.26 million for research at universities of Leeds and Sheffield

Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR) is set to give more than GBP1.26 million of funding to researchers at the universities of Leeds and Sheffield next year.

From January the North Yorkshire-based charity will begin funding six one-year projects and seven three-year research programmes at the universities.

The funding will help researchers analyse a range of different types of cancer through early stage research and clinical work.

Alongside Leeds and Sheffield the cancer charity also funds research at other universities across the region, including Bradford, Hull and York.

And YCR has boosted the number of research projects it supports over the past two years, up from one in seven to one in four this year.

Dr Kathryn Scott, Research Liaison Officer at YCR, said: "These are very exciting times for YCR with unprecedented levels of applications from the whole field of cancer research. Christmas has certainly come early for hundreds of cancer research scientists at the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield.

"We are also in the privileged position of being able to select the most exciting and most cutting edge research to fund including new work into cancer of the bone marrow (myeloma) which runs alongside a nationally recognised clinical trial crucially benefiting cancer patients.

"In addition to taking such science forward, this funding also provides job security for up to three years for our researchers as we continue to invest in people who are the future leaders in international cancer research."

YCR's funding will enable researchers at Sheffield and Leeds universities to carry out clinical and early stage research into breast, ovarian, bladder, pancreatic and myeloma cancers. It will support three projects at the University of Sheffield and four at the University of Leeds.

One of the Sheffield projects involves clinical research into improving current combination chemotherapy treatments while another involves a study into how best to improve current cancer drugs that destroy a tumour's blood vessels in order to stop them growing and spreading.

SOURCE Yorkshire Cancer Research