There are no quick fixes in the battle against cancer. It is estimated that one in three of us will suffer an attack from this most pernicious of enemies at some stage in our lives.

Those lucky enough to escape its all-pervasive tentacles directly will almost certainly be touched by it in other ways, looking on as friends or colleagues are struck down – or desperately trying to offer help or comfort as family members or dear friends summon all their courage to face the pain and suffering ahead.

It would be easy to shrug our shoulders and look away, in the belief that the damage wrought by cancer is inevitable and unbeatable.

But cancer can be beaten. The survival rates for both breast and testicular cancers, for example, have improved year on year for more than 40 years.

No little part of that improvement can be attributed directly to the pioneering work of George Watson and Robert Turner in the development of chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer victims right here in Bradford in the 1950s and ‘60s.

In 2011, during the British Science Festival staged in Bradford, we were proud to be able to announce that that pioneering work was continuing at Bradford University’s Institute of Cancer Therapeutics which arose out of the T&A’s Bradford Can... Appeal in 2002.

Professor Laurence Patterson and his team of researchers had developed a “smart bomb” treatment that could target tumours with drugs while leaving healthy body cells intact. The technique meant that patients could suffer fewer side-effects from the toxic drugs used in chemo- therapy.

It was a breakthrough of global importance. We can offer no better reason to launch our new Bradford Crocus Cancer Appeal today and no better reason to ask every reader to support it than the vital importance of continuing that work.