Three of the brightest minds in cancer research - Dr Emma Searle, Dr Sara Valpione and Mr Paul Sutton - are at the forefront of The Christie charity's latest fundraising appeal.

The three pioneering researchers are all based at Manchester's Paterson building, a research centre that is home to some of the UK's leading cancer researchers and the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre (NBC).

Biomarkers are genes, proteins, and other molecules in the body that reveal insights into cancer's presence, progression, and response to treatment.

Dr Emma Searle is the Deputy Medical Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Manchester Clinical Research Facility (CRF) and consultant haematologist at The Christie hospital and has a particular interest in the development of new treatments for patients with difficult to treat blood cancers.

Dr Searle - who is from Oxfordshire but now living in Sandbach, previously completed a PhD in cancer drug development.

Her role has been transformative in launching a new service that meets the rigorous standards of early-phase trials, which are trials of new drugs often being used for the first time in patients.

She regularly works with colleagues based in the Paterson building to take new drugs from the laboratory to patients and then to learn about how they work to fight the cancer.

 "The nature of early-phase trials is incredibly demanding, but The Christie Charity's investment in my post has been critical in making them possible," Dr Searle explained.

"This funding has allowed us to attract complex global trials to the UK - The Christie is the only UK site offering these groundbreaking studies. In haematology we now treat around 60 patients per year who often otherwise have no viable treatment options."

Dr Searle's academic research focuses on novel ways to improve treatment responses for blood cancer patients, many of whom are older and face limited curative options.

She adds, "The reality of blood cancers is that most of our patients are older, and we don't have any ways of curing them.

"So having a good range of tolerable and effective agents is really important for trying to keep patients alive and well as long as possible. In most cases these cancers remain incurable, but my ultimate goal is to help progress treatment to the point where we can allow patients to achieve a normal life expectancy while remaining on treatment".

Originally from Italy but now living in Manchester, Dr Sara Valpione started at The Christie hospital in Manchester as a clinical research fellow in 2015, She is now a consultant medical oncologist, the clinician in residence at the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre, and a clinical senior lecturer at The University of Manchester.  

Her research is supported within the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre (NBC), where specialised facilities enable rapid sample analysis, and where proximity to The Christie hospital results in impactful research synergies, bringing research findings into clinical practice faster than ever before.

Dr Valpione is now working with a team of experts to investigate a promising new immunotherapy technique. Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the body's own immune system recognise and fight cancer cells more effectively.  

Meanwhile Mr Paul Sutton from Warrington specialises in the management of colorectal cancer, performing open and minimally invasive surgery for primary, advanced, and recurrent cancer, including pelvic exenteration and sacrectomy where the entire contents of the pelvis are removed.

Mr Sutton also performs cytoreductive surgery with heated intra-peritoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) for appendix tumours and colorectal peritoneal metastases, and surgery for neuroendocrine tumours.

His work is focused on combining chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy to improve response to treatment, with the ultimate goal of reducing the need for life-altering surgery.

To support the work of The Christie charity you can donate here

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