Donations have enabled Leeds Hospitals Charity to invest over £166,000 to support state of the art research into brain disease, particularly brain cancer, via continuation funding for the Leeds Neuropathology Research Tissue Bank.

The Leeds Neuropathology Research Tissue Bank was set up in 2021 to facilitate conceptual advancements in brain disease research. The funding has enabled the bank to remain open so it can continue supporting scientists to keep experimenting and testing until they have a breakthrough. Since opening three years ago, the Research Tissue Bank has facilitated more than 14 separate research projects and attracted more than £2.1 million of research funding that is focused on curing brain cancer, but also accelerating scientific progress towards cures for a range of other brain diseases.

Dr Lucy Stead is an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, working on brain cancer research. She leads a group of scientists that are focused on trying to understand why brain tumours recur following treatment.

“The brain is the most complex organ in the human body, and there are many different types of brain cancer. Access to brain tumour tissue is incredibly difficult, but research using this tissue is the foundation that allows news ideas to be tested. This funding will support us with the process of collecting samples to then use the tissue in cutting edge research.”

The bank gives patients the opportunity to donate their tissue to state-of-the-art research, and the team have received very positive feedback from patients about being a part of this movement towards a cure.

“With the use of human tissue samples, we are trying to expedite a cure towards cancers that are difficult to treat, and to find better and more effective treatments.

The funding from Leeds Hospitals Charity will make such a huge difference, enabling us to continue with our research that relies so heavily on samples from the tissue bank. Aside from the cutting-edge research projects themselves, the presence of the tissue bank enables the development of better experimental models, further accelerating our progress towards finding a cure and finding more effective treatments to improve the quality of life for patients here and now.”