Welcome to another episode of That Cancer Conversation! While bowel cancer is relatively rare for people in their 30s and 40s to get bowel cancer, cases are rising.   At 39 years old Dr Anisha Patel (@doctorsgetcancertoo), a practicing GP, was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer. Now, 6 years on, Anisha is dedicated to raising awareness of cancer, especially in adults under 50. In this episode we talk to Anisha discussing her diagnosis, her book and helping the Cancer Grand Challenges team, PROSPECT, work out the cause for the increase in numbers. Anisha's book: Everything You Ho ..read more

Welcome to another episode of That Cancer Conversation!   April is Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Awareness Month, where charities and the young people we support come together to raise awareness of the unique challenges of having cancer during some of the most intense years of your life.    In this episode Sophie speaks to Shaumya, who was 18 years old and getting ready to go to medical school when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Since joining the The Royal Marsden Youth Forum, Shaumya has been an ad ..read more

We’re back with another episode of our subseries, Longer, better lives! This series unpacks our recently published manifesto, Longer, Better Lives: A Manifesto for Cancer Research and Care.     You might recognise our next guest, as she was part of our ‘Together We Are Beating Cancer’ campaign featuring on a TV advert as well as billboards and posters on display across the UK, during September.   Dr Mei-Ling Lancashire is a GP who was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer 2 years ago. In this episode, Sophie sits with Mei-Ling to talk about her cancer exp ..read more

We’ve made huge progress on cancer in the last 50 years.  But not all of it has been felt equally. People’s experience of the healthcare system, and ultimately how likely they are to be successfully diagnosed and treated, varies massively. These are known as health inequalities and can be caused by a range of factors.  In this episode of That Cancer Conversation, we’re exploring how deprivation impacts cancer inequalities and what we can do to narrow the gap.  We speak to Cancer Research advocate and public health manager for Luton, Elizabeth Bailey, the lead researcher of the ..read more

Welcome to another episode of That Cancer Conversation! We’re launching a new subseries which unpacks our recently published manifesto, Longer, Better Lives: A Manifesto for Cancer Research and Care. At Cancer Research UK, we know that huge strides have been made in beating cancer – with survival in the UK doubling over the last 50 years.    But this hard-won progress is at risk of stalling.    The cancer crisis is urgent. Every day, people affected by cancer face anxious waits for tests and treatment, reflected in month after month of missed cancer waiting time ..read more

Clinical trials are a vital step in the development of new medicines of any kind, and that includes new cancer treatments. They aim to find out whether new treatments are safe and effective and work better than current treatments.  In this episode of That Cancer Conversation, we're going to take you into the world of clinical research and walk you through the pathway, from how we design trials in the first place, right through to taking part, to give you the full picture of what a clinical trial really involves.  We spoke to Ruth Plummer, professor of experimental cancer medicine a ..read more

Our latest podcast is about how families cope with cancer, and the scientific progress helping them through. Austin was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when he was 2 years old. In 2016, scientists took some cells from Austin’s immune system. Dr Sara Ghorashian, from the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, changed them so they could recognise cancer cells as a threat. Then they were put back into Austin’s body.  Since then, Austin has been cancer free. Now he’s even helping researchers find out how to make CAR-T cell therapy more eff ..read more

In our new podcast series, That Cancer Conversation: One to One, we’re talking to the people who make Cancer Research UK what it is.  September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and in this first episode we’re hearing from Dr Laura Danielson, our research lead for children’s and young people’s cancer.   Laura moved across the Atlantic to make sure her work had the best chance of helping patients. And, since arriving in the UK, she’s gone from testing a neuroblastoma treatment as one of our funded researchers to managing our entire research strategy for children’s and young pe ..read more

Beating cancer means beating it for everyone. And crucial to doing that is tackling health inequalities, unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population and between different groups within society.  In this episode, we're diving into the inequalities faced by one group in particular, the LGBTQ+ community, and what we can do to make cancer care more inclusive for everyone.    To get some insight into the inequalities in cancer care in the LGBTQ+ community and what needs to change to reduce them, we hear from Dr Alison Berner a medical oncologist, academic ..read more

When thinking about cancer treatment, our first thoughts may be about surgery or chemotherapy.  But what about what we eat?  In this episode, we hear from Dr Clare Shaw, a lead cancer dietician and therapy researcher who has written multiple books with the Royal Marsden Hospital, including The Cancer Cookbook. And Professor Karen Vousden, co-founder of Faeth Therapeutics, a company looking at how diets could help beat cancer.  From taste changes to the keto diet, we sit down with our knowledgeable guests to help us scratch the surface of the vast world of diet and cancer ..read more