Edinburgh scientists awarded £2.4 million to tackle brain tumours

Scientists in Edinburgh are to benefit from £2.4 million funding award to find new ways to tackle brain tumours.

Professors Margaret Frame and Valerie Brunton at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre have been given the Programme Award by the charity to carry out their research.

Brain tumours are one of the hardest types of cancer to treat and survival has barely improved over the last 40 years.

The funding will help the scientists to understand more about brain tumours, such as glioblastoma, and how to target them with drugs

They will use new stem cell models'' to study how a specialised group of molecules work and how cancer changes can be targeted for therapy.

Professor Frame, who was awarded an OBE for her contribution to cancer research, said: We are thrilled and proud to have been awarded this funding to help us push forward our new ideas on understanding brain tumours and find potential new treatments for patients with this devastating disease.

We are looking forward to finding out what we can uncover using techniques developed by our colleagues in Edinburgh and London - which have not been possible until relatively recently. ''

The team will look at how certain proteins affect brain tumours, including the immune system and examine the potential of immunotherapies to treat glioblastoma.

It is estimated there are around 240 people diagnosed with glioblastoma in the brain every year in Scotland.

Victoria Steven, Cancer Research UK's spokeswoman in Scotland, said: Whilst survival for many types of cancer has improved dramatically over the last 40 years, tackling brain tumours is still a real challenge and they take the lives of far too many people each year.

This #2.4 million investment recognises the world-leading research taking place in Edinburgh, which is crucial to helping us understand the biology of brain tumours and finding new and better ways to treat them.'