Collaboration Award: Pediatric Adolescent Wildtype & Syndromic Gastro-Intestinal Stromal Tumor (PAWS-GIST). Alliance, Jayne Bressington and Dr. Ramesh Bulusu – Consultant Oncologist MD, MRCP, MSc, FRCR, Clinical Lead – PAWS-GIST Clinic, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge
The UK National Cancer Research Institute’s (NCRI) annual conference was held on November 3rd-5th. This year the conference was held in Glasgow (Scotland). To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the conference, the NCRI held it’s first Excellence Awards covering four categories:
• Collaboration
• Impact
• Innovation
• Outstanding contribution
These categories are directly linked to key strategic objectives of the NCRI which aims to accelerate progress in cancer research through collaboration.
Our PAWS-GIST Alliance was reviewed by an independent panel and up against stiff competition. As a result, we are very excited to have been selected and awarded the Collaboration Award, which was presented at the conference.
Dr Iain Frame, CEO of NCRI, said: “We are delighted to recognise and honour the achievements made by these individuals and teams who have worked effortlessly in the community to help accelerate progress in cancer research for the benefit of patients and society.We received many high-quality submissions and the panel had a tough decision to make but they felt that the shortlisted entries matched all criteria, often exceeding them.”
The conference was held over three days at the Scottish Exhibition centre in Glasgow and it was first time that GIST Support UK and PAWS-GIST had attended. Our booth was visited by the spectrum of medical specialists and scientists which in combination with attending cutting edge research lectures and presentations has resulted in a host of new contacts and leads to progress research opportunities for GIST and PAWS-GIST cancer patients. We are delighted to have received this award and are very grateful for the opportunities that attending the NCRI conference has opened up for GIST & PAWS-GIST patients.
From Glasgow we travelled south to Cambridge where we met with representatives from Groundwork UK and Tesco who presented us with a cheque for £10,000 which has been awarded to PAWS-GIST as a result of the “Tesco Centenary Grant Award.” This fantastic award will help to fund the next three PAWS-GIST clinics, the first of which is happening on the 28th-29th of November at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge. Thank you to everyone who shopped at Tesco’s over the past four months and voted for our PAWS-GIST rare cancer clinic, we could not have received this without you and as always sincere thanks to Dr. Bulusu and all of our specialists and volunteers who work tirelessly, seeking answers and opportunities to improve treatments and find a cure for PAWS-GIST!
Left to right: Matthew Garnett, Jayne Bressington, Dr. Ramesh Bulusu, Richard Stephens, Paul Pharoah
Other awards went to: Innovation Award: Cutting-edge work in the field of translational cancer genomics: Mathew Garnett, Translational Cancer Genomics Group Leader, Wellcome Sanger Institute. Outstanding Contribution to the NCRI Award: Richard Stephens, Former Chair of the NCRI Consumer Forum. Impact Award: for developing the Predict suite of personalised risk communication tools to help doctors and patients to make more informed decisions on cancer treatments: Paul Pharoah, Department of Cancer Epidemiology, University of Cambridge and Jem Rashbass, Public Health England.
