I imagine that most of us have known someone who has suddenly found themselves very unwell indeed, with a diagnosis of a brain tumour following soon afterwards. The shock is devastating to all.  Little surprise when our Livery’s Charity Committee proposed Brain Tumour Research (BTR) as our chosen cause for the next three years, there was so much immediate support.

Yet few of us have much knowledge or understanding of the disease or what causes it. Some of us were able to take up the invitation from BTR to visit a laboratory which is part of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey.

We learned a good deal, including the fact that brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer.  We also learned that only 1% of the national spend on cancer research is allocated to this devastating disease.

The laboratory we visited focuses on Glioma and particularly on the forms of brain tumour which attack children, which we learned are not quite the same as the forms that attack adults.

I was not alone in finding the visit overwhelming from the combination of gentle but total commitment from everyone we met at the laboratory to using every ounce of their abilities, imagination and skill to try to advance knowledge of the workings of this terrible disease and discovering what might be done to control, mitigate and hopefully one day, to prevent it. Every single person we met in the lab was in no doubt whatsoever of the vital importance of their work. We also learned of the remarkable, and frankly wonderful, way in which the relatively few research teams in this field, located widely around the world, co-operate together, sharing their data and ideas so that they can support each other’s exploratory work.

None of us left this visit unmoved by the urgency of the work, or of the devastation for parents and families of seeing their loved ones suffer from this disease. We were all deeply touched by the short film of one baby who had received treatment, which had enabled them to survive and grow up as a child, albeit still needing the special support which their parents so lovingly gave.

If you get the chance to join another such laboratory visit, do take it, and even if you cannot, be assured that Brain Tumour Research are engaged in truly important and wonderful work, that each one of us should be trying to support.

PM Nigel Macdonald