Author: Piers Townley

Ahead of the national elections in May 2016 we have launched manifestos in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Last week, the UK Government announced changes to the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) as part of the 2016 Budget.

The e-petition calls on larger cancer charities and the government to invest more in research into brain tumours.

Paul Nicholson, has won the Healthcare Volunteer of the Year award for his work and commitment to The Brain Tumour Charity, following his own ongoing battle with a low grade brain tumour.

We will use every day of March to make our voice heard, on behalf of everyone everywhere whose life has been affected by a brain tumour.

emotive, a science and technology-led healthcare agency, has chosen us out of 24 charities to be their Team Charity for 2016.

On 27 January, a brain tumour patient at Angers hospital wore a Virtual Reality (VR) headset during an awake craniotomy to allow neurosurgeons to ‘map’ his brain tumour as it was being removed.

The report discovered that up to 63% of 111 English hospital trusts have at least one scanner that is a decade old, the point where the technology ideally should be scrapped and replaced with upgraded machines.

This March we’ll be launching manifestos in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ahead of the devolved nations’ elections in May.

Dr Jem Rashbass, National Director for Disease Registration at Public Health England, has posted a new Public Health England blog about the importance of cancer data.

“My own research lab studies the origins of cancer, particularly childhood brain tumours, and is seeking to develop completely new treatments of these devastating tumours.”

Sheffield Children’s hospital is leading the use of an intraoperative MRI scanner combined with new brain mapping software to identify if they have removed all of the tumour while the patient is still in theatre.

Colorado parents Ryan and Amy Green, have developed That Dragon, Cancer, an interactive videogame experience that documents their 5 year old son, Joel and his struggle and death from a rare form of paediatric brain tumour.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina Health Care System have been exploring the role of a DNA repair enzyme in cells called Dicer. When they removed this enzyme from preclinical models of medulloblastoma, a brain cancer often found in children, they found increased levels of DNA damage that led to the cell’s death.

A major study has asked medical experts across the University of California, San Francisco, what they see as real developments in the coming year.

Scientists based at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility in Oxfordshire, have used a technique known as x-ray fluorescence to track microscopic trace metals and correctly identify malignant brain tumour cells.

The new blood test focuses on germ cell cancers that are rare but take root in cells that develop into sperm and eggs and may lead to malignant tumours in childhood.

New Zealand-based technology company, Genulin Interactive, have produced a cutting-edge visualisation of cancer immunotherapy.

In a report published yesterday in Cancer Cell journal, American researchers are focusing on gene mutations found in a third of brain gliomas.

Two new NHS proton beam centres have commenced construction with planners claiming they could treat 1,500 patients a year.

China joins GBM AGILE, an Australasian adaptive clinical trial project tackling glioblastoma multiforme.