Knowledge Capital

[jrb]

Been Quite a few Knowledge Capital stories and news articles over the last few weeks. Perhaps we need a thread. (The Tesco one has already been posted, etc, etc)


A BREAST cancer research unit is set to make Manchester one of the top European centres for studies into the disease.

Up to 15 scientists at the £5m unit - announced today by the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer - will try to find more sophisticated treatments by developing ways of working out which drugs will be most suitable for each patient.

Along with colleagues at two other new centres, in Edinburgh and London, they aim to pinpoint the earliest signs of the disease and ways to prevent it developing.

Every year, 700 people are diagnosed with breast cancer in Greater Manchester and they will benefit from any research trials carried out at the new unit, when it opens next year.

The centre will be based in newly-refurbished laboratories at the Patterson Institute of Cancer Research, next to The Christie, Manchester's specialist cancer hospital.

It will have close links with the newly-opened Nightingale Centre and Genesis Prev- ention Centre, at Wythenshawe.

Anthony Howell, professor of medical oncology at Manchester University, who will be the director of the new unit, said: "It will draw on the enormous strengths in basic and clinical research which exist here and our work will focus on ways to diagnose breast cancer earlier and prevent the disease from occurring.

"Along with our existing research interests in this field, this centre has the potential to make Manchester one of the top breast cancer research clusters in Europe, if not worldwide.

"The aim of our work will be to create new, more sophisticated treatments and more accurately predict which therapies are most likely to succeed for any individual."

Charles Streuli, professor of cell biology at Manchester University, and Nigel Bundred, professor in surgical oncology at the University Hospital of South Manchester and Christie hospitals, will also be directors of the new unit.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in Britain, yet survival rates are among the lowest in Europe.