Research
04 Feb 2020Our Christmas appeal hits £1.2 million. Thank you to all who helped us get there.
From the researchers working to bring new drugs to men, and the families affected by advanced prostate cancer, we say thank you for raising £1.2 million for prostate cancer immunotherapy.
As news broke last week that for the first time ever, prostate cancer was the most commonly diagnosed cancer in England, we learned that our Christmas appeal surpassed our £1million target.
With more people living with the disease than ever before, we need an urgent and major transformation in how we diagnose, treat and learn about prostate cancer. One main priority, of course, is new and more effective treatments.
Immunotherapy is a massively exciting development in cancer treatment: a radical approach that can tweak our body’s own immune system to target and kill cancer cells. It's precise, kinder to the body and very effective at treating many other cancers.
But because of a lack of funding, and the complexity of prostate cancer, it’s difficult to train the immune system to target prostate cancer cells. There are currently no immunotherapies available to treat prostate cancer in the UK.
That’s why in December we asked you to help Professor Helen McCarthy, from Queen’s University Belfast to deliver a prostate cancer vaccine. Helen has built a clever system that helps immunotherapy treatment to break through certain barriers in the body so it can be delivered direct to the immune cells, which then can be tweaked to target prostate cancer.
If we can break through these barriers, we have the chance to harness the power of the immune system to target prostate cancer with ruthless precision. Helen’s system is showing promising results in the lab. The next step is to develop it to a stage where she can test it in men.
That’s why we’re delighted to say that our 2019 Christmas appeal has just smashed through our fundraising target, allowing us to fund immunotherapy researchers like Helen who need to take their experimental treatments to the next step.
Here we celebrate some of the ways you helped smash the million pound mark, with some messages from those who’ll benefit from your efforts.
The Carol singers
Over 800 of you joined us in two cities to celebrate the beginning of the festive scene with familiar faces like Bill Turnbull and Brookside star Dean Sullivan. The events raised over £46,000.
The Christmas shoppers
Whether it was having £25,000 of your donations matched by our partners Jacamo, getting your Christmas cards on our online shop, your Christmas jumpers from Burton Menswear or donating as you shop with Amazon Smile, your Christmas gifts gave back.
Thank you to the incredible supporters at Prostate Cancer UK for your donations. Without your generosity, my research wouldn’t be possible. It really will go such a long way to improving prostate cancer immunotherapy treatment for men and ultimately, saving lives.
ICAP Charity Day
We were one of the charities fortunate enough to have been chosen to participate in ICAP Charity Day. Every year ICAP donate 100% of their commission to a selection of charity partners on one day. This year they raised an incredible £4.6m globally bringing the total amount raised for various charities over the 27 years to £150million.
All the festive givers
And the vast majority of funds were raised by the thousands of you who responded to our postal campaign or donated online after reading about families like Sue's...
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has donated. It means the world to me that you care so much about stopping more men like my Bernie dying to prostate cancer. I know that your donation will help our future generations and Bernie would be so proud.
Innovative new treatments like Professor McCarthy’s vaccine system have the potential to give families more time with the men they love. Thank you so much for your generosity.
