The Bishop of Bradford is backing the Telegraph & Argus Bradford Crocus Cancer Appeal and has urged people across the district to support our £1 million fundraising campaign.

The Right Reverend Nick Baines was asked to join our ambitious campaign to fight cancer here in Bradford by Bradford University’s Vice-Chancellor Mark Cleary.

Earlier this month, we announced our biggest fundraising drive in more than a decade, which could further cement the city’s world-class reputation in developing new cancer treatments and make its ground-breaking work to fight the disease ten times faster than before.

We want to buy Bradford University’s Institute of Cancer Therapeutics (ICT) a mass spectrometer, which could hold the key to its scientists making a vital discovery in the war on cancer.

It will allow scientists to study tens of thousands of proteins, which play a key role in cancer and could hold the breakthrough to developing new, targeted treatments without the horrendous side effects of chemotherapy.

The Bishop, who is on the advisory board of the charity, said: “I think everyone who reads the T&A will have a relative or friend who has suffered from or died of cancer. They will know the impact on their lives and the lives of their families.

“This is an opportunity in straightened times to be generous and to invest in the future for people who may benefit from better treatments.

“It may not benefit us, but it could benefit our children.”

The T&A Bradford Crocus Cancer Appeal is being run with the University, Yorkshire Cancer Research and principal supporter the Sovereign Health Care Charitable Trust, which has pledged a potential £200,000 in matched funding.

The Bishop said: “I think sometimes people have the misconception that universities are remote places where people go to get degrees and are not aware of the degree of expertise in trying to make these sorts of discoveries.

“But these discoveries cannot be made if they do not have the resources and it is up to us to help us raise this money.”