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Professor Nicola Sibson of the Department of Oncology has been awarded a grant worth almost £200,000 by research charity Breast Cancer Now to fund cutting-edge research to uncover novel treatment combinations to control breast cancer that has spread to the brain.

Expression of the cell adhesion molecule VCAM–1 (red) on vascular endothelial cells showing close association with small metastatic tumour (green) in mouse brain. Cell nuclei are shown in blue. Image courtesy of Sibson Experimental Neuroimaging Group.

The news comes on Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness Day (Friday 13th October 2017), as leading charity Breast Cancer Now announces more than £700,000 of funding across the UK for research specifically targeting secondary (or metastatic) breast cancer – where the disease has spread to another part of the body.

When breast cancer spreads, known as secondary or metastatic breast cancer, it becomes incurable. While metastatic breast cancer can sometimes be controlled using different combinations of treatments, it cannot be cured, and almost all of the 11,500 women that die as a result of breast cancer each year in the UK will have seen their cancer spread. Nearly 600 women in Oxfordshire are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and over 100 women in the region die from the disease each year.

Read more (Department of Oncology website)