Collaboration, teamwork and partnerships are vital to childhood cancer research. Ellie Wilkinson, CCLG's Research Communications Executive, explains how charities are coming together and researchers are linking up to work towards a better future for children with cancer.
Working in partnership with other charities can help us to achieve results quicker, by funding more, and betterquality, research. That’s why CCLG is working to foster a childhood cancer research community that improves collaboration. Over the last six years, we’ve worked together with six other children’s cancer charities, including The Little Princess Trust and Candlelighters, to fund over £19 million of research projects. We offer other childhood cancer charities our significant research expertise to run and manage collaborative projects, alongside contributing funding for the research. An important part of this work is our expert advisory board, which reviews research applications to ensure that they are top-quality proposals.
"Our partnership with CCLG is incredibly important to us. We benefit immensely from the expertise of their advisory groups to review our applications, which ensures we’re funding the best-quality research of the highest priority. It wouldn’t make sense for The Little Princess Trust to duplicate CCLG’s resources - the partnership allows us to channel more of our funds towards research, rather than into the costs administrating the research process."
Wendy Tarplee-Morris, Director of Service and Impact at The Little Princess Trust
"Only by working together as a community can we make sure big enough numbers are involved in research and lots of different pieces of the puzzle can be put together to understand the bigger picture and make real improvements, so that ultimately, more children survive cancer and survive it better."
Emily Wragg Chief Executive at Candlelighters
It’s not just charities that work together
Researchers often share their data and knowledge between different disciplines of cancer research and across international boundaries. Dr Alejandra Bruna's work is an excellent example of how sharing ideas and knowledge across fields can improve research.
Dr Bruna worked in breast cancer research for 12 years but moved into childhood brain cancer research after realising the limitations clinicians and researchers were facing in treating this disease.
She believes that collaborative working was instrumental to her starting research in a new field, and that her experience has brought new experimental approaches and ways of thinking which complement the amazing work already done. She’s now leading a project, funded by The Little Princess Trust in partnership with CCLG, which is using genetic analysis to find out how neuroblastoma evolves to pave the way for new treatment strategies and ways to prevent resistance and relapse.
As a part of the international childhood cancer research community, Dr Jonathan Bond is currently working on a project with Tanzanian researchers based at Muhimbili National Hospital. He wants to help address the global challenge of childhood cancer and to close the survival gap between children with leukaemia in different countries. Dr Bond’s project looks at creating cheaper and easier genetic tests so that Tanzanian hospitals have a way to personalise treatments for childhood leukaemia, which would mean every child could have the best treatment for their specific cancer type.
Working together to identify and address a research problem
Much of childhood cancer research involves charities, researchers and doctors seeing an area of ‘unmet need’ and working together for the betterment of the childhood cancer community. This free exchange of ideas and information has shaped the current research landscape and shows the importance of fostering a collaborative community.
From Contact magazine issue 97 - Winter 2022
