About cancer research uk
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) are the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research. The vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. Their ground-breaking work has made significant contributions to most of the top worldwide drugs and future work will ensure that millions more people survive.
We are at a tipping point in scientific research. Their understanding of genetics combined with new technologies is enabling us to accelerate progress. In the UK there is an unrivalled opportunity to trial new drugs and better treatments –20% of all cancer patients now take part in clinical trials and this is a vast increase on the 3% in 2000. And with cancer affecting more than 1 in 3 of us, there’s an urgent need to focus this support and raise more funds for the research that they currently cannot afford –including translational research to ensure that new scientific discoveries in the labs can quickly become new treatments for patients.
- Every two minutes someone else is diagnosed with cancer in the UK
- There are around 285,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed each year in the UK
- There are more than 200 types of cancer, each with different causes, symptoms and treatments.
Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of this progress but there is so much more to do. COVID-19 has hit Cancer Research UK hard and has slowed us down, threatening to severely impact our research and make our ambition of improving cancer survival to 3 in 4 by 2034 more difficult. We’re predicting a drop in fundraising income of £160m this year and £300m over 3 years. Despite this, Cancer Research UK won’t stop working towards making progress for people affected by cancer. We’re determined to continue our work to create better treatments for tomorrow, but we need your help today.
What Cancer Research UK have already achieved
- Over the last 40 years, overall 10-year cancer survival rates have doubled
- More than 7 out of 10 children with cancer are now successfully treated
- Around 95% of men with testicular cancer now survive beyond 10 years
- Around half of people diagnosed with bowel cancer survive for at least 5 years after diagnosis
- 2 out of 3 women with breast cancer now survive beyond 20 years
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How our pets help!
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What money can buy
£10 buys a new bulb for microscopes, so we can see cancer’s every move and beat it sooner.
£15 buys a polyacrylamide gel, which separates out different sized bits of DNA and reveals vital clues about how to beat cancer
£20 buys a digital PCR assay, which scans a piece of genetic material to find cancer-causing mutations. Finding out what causes cancer could help our scientists beat it.
£25 buys a microscope micrometer, which allows scientists to measure the size of tumours and learn more about how they grow.
£30 buys special food to grow cells in the lab, allowing scientists to find out more about cancer than ever before.
£45 buys a pipette that precisely measures tiny amounts of liquid, making sure our scientists get accurate results in their experiments.
£50 buys special chemicals called restriction enzymes, which act like molecular scissors to cut up long strands of DNA, allowing our scientists to find out more about the genes that can cause cancer.
£80 buys a Wright-Giemsa cell staining kit, which our scientists use to distinguish between different types of blood cells.
£100 could pay for a patient’s cancer biopsy, where a tiny amount of tumour is removed with a needle to be studied in the lab
Every Donation Helps!
You don’t need to enter the competition or even own a dog to get involved.