How Bradford cancer scientists are building on years of cutting-edge study

But what many will not know is the city’s legacy in cancer treatment goes much deeper than that.

When people think of the disease, it is likely they will think of chemotherapy.

That treatment, used all over the world to treat millions of cancer patients, was also developed in Bradford.

The man behind it was Professor Robert Turner.

He came to the city from Belfast in 1957, after working on a project looking at the effect of nitrogen mustard, or mustard gas, on childhood leukaemia.

Using this as his inspiration, the consultant pathologist teamed up with surgeon George Whyte-Watson, who was treating and operating on many women with breast cancer at Bradford hospitals.

Prof Turner was affected by seeing the plight of the women who were being treated at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital, many of whom had young children.

He thought if he could find a way to stop the cancer spreading, lives could be saved. And the newest drugs based on nitrogen mustard could be the way to do it.

The first chemotherapy trials started with desperately-ill patients in Bradford, who were in the final stages of cancer and had no other hope.

Three of the first were women suffering from cancers of the breast, cervix and uterus.

They were treated with Thiotepa – the drug derived from nitrogen mustard – but the side effects were severe and caused the women to become very ill.

However, the drug was found to have some success in killing off the cancerous cells and though the women eventually died, the trials were continued.

The first results were released in 1959 – and published exclusively in the Telegraph & Argus – but the response from fellow scientists was far from positive.

In fact, the reception they received was so bad Prof Turner and his wife even considered emigrating.

But Prof Turner and Mr Whyte-Watson were determined to carry on to publish ten-year results and people started travelling from all over the world to try their new treatment in Bradford.

The T&A even reported one case of a woman who travelled from New Zealand for treatment at BRI after her mother sent her a clipping about the success of the new drugs.

In 1969, the next set of results was more encouraging and their research began to get approval from the rest of the medical profession.

But they realised they needed to refine the drugs because, though they were effective at killing off the cancerous cells, they were also extremely harsh on the rest of the patient’s body.

Mr Whyte-Watson died in 1973, only a year after his retirement. But their work continued.

One Bradford businessman, Dr Arnold Moore, decided he wanted to support the research after his wife Margot had died of breast cancer in 1974.

The following year he set up the charity War on Cancer to provide regular funding for the work so the facilities could be improved and take on more staff.

Nine months after its launch in 1975, the appeal had hit its original target of £100,000 and in 1976, the T&A held its Give Us A Ring campaign to urge people to help the charity by collecting ring pulls.

The charity was embraced by people all over the district, including six Lord Mayors of Bradford who adopted it as their chosen charity during their year of office, as well as many schools and businesses.

The first laboratory was created for the research in 1982.

War on Cancer financed the running and most of the staff at the laboratory, eventually also contributing to an extra consultant oncologist at BRI.

By 1983, War On Cancer had collected more than £500,000 and by its tenth anniversary, its total topped £2 million.

In 1999, War on Cancer announced its merger with the Cancer Research Campaign, which later became Cancer Research UK.

Dr Moore was recognised for his huge contribution with a star named after him by the International Star Registry and he was honoured for his services to the charity in 2000, when he was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours list.

Prof Turner died in 1990 from cancer, after a long battle against the disease he had devoted his life to treating.

The T&A Bradford Crocus Cancer Appeal is the next step in the city’s fight against cancer.

Our £1 million appeal hopes to buy a new, state-of-the-art mass spectrometer for Bradford University’s Institute of Cancer Therapeutics.

This will mean its researchers will be able to study the vital role of proteins in cancer around ten times faster than ever before.

Their work could hold the key to the next major breakthrough in cancer treatment, here in Bradford.

Find out more about the T&A Crocus Cancer Appeal