At the research centre 50 scientists are studying why low grade tumours develop and the role the immune system might have in their growth.<\/p>\n
David Parkinson, a professor of neuroscience at the Derriford-based research facility, said they hope to translate their knowledge into therapies for patients.<\/p>\n
He said: “We do have one trial that’s ongoing at the moment, to repurpose anti-retroviral drugs for treatment of a tumour called a Schwannoma, but it is difficult to get things into clinic trials.<\/p>\n
“Funding is always a issue, and that can be a frustration for us in terms of taking our basic science and what we are discovering here, and really making an impact for patients in the future.”<\/p>\n
The research centre is home to a biobank containing about 1,000 tumour and blood samples taken from consenting patients who have undergone neurosurgery next door at Derriford Hospital.<\/p>\n
The long-term ambition, is to one day in the future to be able to personalise treatments for particular tumour type – there are more than 120 different types – by targeting specific genetic changes within them.<\/p>\n
Brain Tumour Research is currently funding a five-year programme of research at the Plymouth facility and estimates at the moment 75% of funding for research comes from charities like them.<\/p>\n
Hugh Adams, from the charity, said it wanted the government to invest a similar amount into brain cancer research that it does into other cancers.<\/p>\n
He said: “If we look at areas where we had success like breast cancer and leukaemia, which is wonderful – it’s because they put money in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the research centre 50 scientists are studying why low grade tumours develop and the role the immune…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-771328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}