Amser Justin Time marks World Pancreatic Cancer Day

A welsh charity is celebrating World Pancreatic Cancer Day by gifting over £39,000 to cutting-edge cancer research in Wales, to help pave the way to new early detection tools and therapies for one of the world’s deadliest cancers.

In the UK, almost 10,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, with half of all diagnoses occurring in A&E, treated as emergencies. To help improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease, Amser Justin Time are donating £39,024 to Cardiff University’s European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute in memory of Justin Smith.

Amser Justin Time was launched by Welsh soprano, Shân Cothi, after she lost her husband after a short illness to pancreatic cancer. Since the launch of Amser Justin Time, the charity has raised over a quarter of a million pounds to fund pancreatic cancer research, donating a total of over £200,000 of charitable donations to Dr Catherine Hogan’s laboratory at Cardiff University, helping them to complete their research.

Dr Catherine Hogan, Research Fellow at Cardiff University, said: “Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease with poor prognosis, as many people are sadly diagnosed at incurable stages. This means that early detection is key to improved patient prognosis.

“Our work aims to understand the early stages of pancreatic cancer, exploring the biology underlying how pancreatic cancer initiates and develops from a healthy tissue.

“The tissues in our bodies have very good systems which remove cells that have mutated or are precancerous and this helps to keep tissues healthy. But it appears that sometimes these cancer cells can evade these protective systems, and avoid being destroyed, and go on to form a cancer.

“Over the past five years, we have set out to determine how healthy pancreatic tissue is maintained. By increasing our understanding of how tissue health is maintained, we can then determine how tumour initiation is triggered and unravel the mechanisms that drive tumour development.

“If we can understand this, we can go on to develop better detection tools and diagnostics that will help to change lives.”

On November 15, World Pancreatic Cancer Day, Amser Justin Time will donate charitable funds to help further the work of Cardiff University’s European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, continuing the support that the charity has provided Dr Hogan’s research.

“Since 2014, our research has been supported by Amser Justin Time, and this support has been instrumental in allowing us to develop new and innovative approaches to explore the cell biology of early pancreatic cancer.

“We are also developing collaborative translational projects with cancer researchers from within Cardiff University and researchers at Swansea University. We are also connecting with pancreatic cancer teams on a national UK level. Therefore, this support has helped to put Wales at the forefront of pancreatic cancer research.

“Without support like this, we wouldn’t be able to continue our research. We are incredibly grateful for Amser Justin Time and Shân Cothi’s continued support, which is allowing us to pursue answers that will help to transform the way we treat pancreatic cancer in the future,” added Catherine.