A vital new research project funded by a Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) Special Named Fund will investigate the effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy on children’s developing brains.
The project, led by Professor Olaf Ansorge at the University of Oxford, is funded by Ben Pavitt's Legacy of Love Fund, set up in memory of 16-year-old Ben Pavitt. Ben’s parents, Mike and Suzie, set up the fund to help find safer, kinder and more effective treatments that reduce the likelihood of relapse.
In 2020, when aged 15, Ben was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. After two weeks of illness that was initially thought to be a chest infection, an X-ray showed multiple tumours around Ben’s heart and lungs. The initial treatment worked, and Ben went into remission. However, the cancer returned in June 2021.
Mike said:
When the paediatric ICU department at Southampton General Hospital saved his life shortly after his 15th birthday in 2020, one of his first thoughts on coming home was to raise funds for them.
Much later, when he was given a terminal diagnosis, we talked about how we could create a lasting legacy which would benefit other childhood cancer sufferers and hopefully save at least one family the anguish of losing their child to cancer.
Within two years of starting their fundraising, the Pavitts and their supporters had raised over £100,000 for children and young people’s cancer research. Now, their hard work and dedication to making a difference has funded Prof Ansorge’s important research.
Suzie spoke of what this means to the family:
Ben was very clear that he wanted his legacy to help all children, regardless of the type of cancer they happened to be facing. All he sought to do was to alleviate suffering.
He would have been very happy that we have been able to raise the target he gave us of £100,000 over two years, and that the research we are funding now could potentially have an impact on many lives, of children and young people, their families and loved ones.
It feels like we have done him proud and done justice to his memory.
In Prof Ansorge’s project, titled ‘What are the effects of radiation and chemotherapy on children’s developing brains?’, he hopes to uncover more about the long-term effects of childhood cancer treatment.
He said:
We are very grateful to be able to conduct this project with the generous support from CCLG and the Pavitt family. The developing brain is highly sensitive to the side effects of common cancer therapies, and we know very little about the biological mechanisms causing them.
We want to find out why some brain cells are more vulnerable than others, and what the pattern of damage in them is. We would not be able to investigate this without the incredible courage and generosity of children and families affected by cancer who pledged their tissues to us for research after death.
Prof Ansorge's team will explore genetic changes in various types of healthy brain cells. They will also look at how cancer cells that survive treatment are different from those in the original tumour. The ultimate goal is to understand the long-term effects of cancer treatments and develop strategies to prevent them.
Ms Claire Lewis, who will be working on the project for her PhD, added: “I’m honoured to work on pressing real-life questions that I know many young cancer survivors have: ‘How will the treatment affect me in the long term?’ and ‘How could we prevent these side effects in the future?’
“We are confident that our work will lead to new insights about young brains’ responses to cancer therapy, and hopeful that this may help design better, gentler and more targeted treatments.”
Ashley Ball-Gamble, CEO of CCLG, said:
This research could help us progress towards safer treatments, and has only been made possible by the Pavitt family’s fundraising. Their dedication to honouring Ben’s memory has raised an incredible amount, and will help improve the lives of children and young people facing cancer in the future.