2018: The Lady Eda Jardine Charitable Trust

Promoting knowledge exchange and education in cancer research

The Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre community is extremely grateful to the Lady Eda Jardine Charitable Trust for its continuous support of our Global Learning and Exchange Fund.

In 2018 this support allowed our scientists to participate in a spectrum of conferences and workshops including: “Driving Innovative Cancer Science to Patient Care” – Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, Cancer Research UK Brain Tumour Conference, The Dynamic Cell III Meeting of the British Society for Cell Biology, UK In Vivo Imaging User Group meeting, “Cellular Signalling and Cancer Therapy” workshop of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, Matrix Biology Europe meeting, SPEC 2018 meeting of the International Society for Clinical Spectroscopy and the Beatson International Cancer Conference.

It also enabled important knowledge sharing visits and seminars by investigators from outside Edinburgh, including visits by Professor Antonio Iavarone (Institute for Cancer Genetics, Columbia University): “ Genetics and Precision Treatment of Brain Tumors”; Professor Louis Chesler (The Institute of Cancer Research, London): “Modelling and therapeutic targeting of the cancer drivers MYCN and ALK in paediatric solid tumours”; Doctor Guillaume Jacquemet (Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku): “Filopodia and the metastatic cascade” and Dr Alexander Pietras (Faculty of Medicine, Lund University), leading to preparation of a joint research proposal in brain cancer research that included two early career researchers.

Finally, this year, we also used some Lady Eda Jardine Charitable Trust funds to provide prizes (in the form of science travel grants) for students in the Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre and Institute for Genetics and Molecular Medicine. All PhD students were invited to compete for these ‘prizes’ – displaying their writing skills in the process - and we combined some IGMM funds with Lady Eda Jardine funds to permit a number of ‘prizes’ to be awarded. This initiative was overseen by Prof Nick Gilbert, Director of IGMM Post-Graduate studies.