MIRANDA FILMER’S LEGACY FUELS PIONEERING CANCER RESEARCH
A new research laboratory dedicated to advancing treatment for rare and aggressive cancers has opened at the Royal Free Hospital with a tribute to Miranda Filmer, a young woman whose legacy has inspired a huge fundraising drive.
The spatial biology hub, based in the UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, will use pioneering technology to improve understanding of complex diseases such as neuroendocrine cancers and develop more effective therapies.
Neuroendocrine cancers are a group of cancers that develop in cells of the neuroendocrine system. They can develop in different parts of the body, such as the stomach, bowel, pancreas or lungs.
The hub has been made possible thanks to:
a grant from the Medical Research Council (UKRI), awarded to leading scientist Dr Pilar Acedo Núñez (UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health). This funding has enabled the purchase of two cutting-edge platforms - a digital spatial profiler and a spatial molecular imager - designed to analyse tissues at an unprecedented level of detail. These advanced tools will help researchers identify new treatment strategies and bring hope to patients facing difficult diagnoses of neuroendocrine cancers.
funding from the Miranda Filmer Fund for a PhD researcher and a laboratory technician - as well as laboratory equipment – who are helping to examine in more detail than ever before how cancer cells behave and interact with other cells.
Miranda Filmer, from Wiltshire, died in 2022 of neuroendocrine cancer, aged 30. Miranda’s family set up a fund for research into neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) and have been actively fundraising since.
The Miranda Filmer Fund has raised £573,360 to date, with a target of £1million, in support of groundbreaking research exploring why some cancer cells are more aggressive, why they change their structure and how they respond to treatment. The aim is to increase understanding of which treatments work better on which patients.
The neuroendocrine cancer study is led by the Royal Free London’s Professor Martyn Caplin, a global expert on NETs, and Professor Krista Rombouts, an internationally-renowned scientist and interim head of department at UCL’s Institute for Liver and Digestive Health.
Prof Rombouts said: “These technologies provide unparalleled opportunities to create detailed 3D maps of molecules within tissue samples.
“We will, for the first time, be able to map genes or proteins in their native location in the tissue and investigate how they interact with different cell types.
“This will help us understand more about the behaviour of the genes responsible for the development of neuroendocrine cancer and to decipher in great detail how tumours react to different medication, helping clinicians to personalise treatment and therapy plans for their patients.”
On the day Miranda would have celebrated her 33rd birthday, the Filmer family and the scientists leading the global search for better treatments gathered to name the research hub in her honour.
Prof Caplin said: “Miranda had a very aggressive form of neuroendocrine cancer, which is a rare cancer. She was a courageous and determined lady who lived life to the full, including competing in horse trials, until the very end of her too-short life. This is a wonderful tribute to her, as she was always looking to the now and the future. This laboratory will help not only neuroendocrine cancer patients but also patients with more common cancers.”
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Notes to editors
About the research
The spatial biology laboratory will enable cancers to be assessed in much more molecular detail than previously available and in 3D.
The research project funded by the Miranda Filmer Fund represents the first known effort to integrate genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and spatial biology in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine carcinoma (GEP-NEC), addressing critical gaps in understanding this rare and aggressive cancer.
Multiomics is a new biological analysis approach where the data sets of different omic groups - such as the genome, proteome, transcriptome, epigenome, metabolome and microbiome - are combined during analysis. It provides
multi-layered information on how different facets of biological systems interact with one another.
About neuroendocrine cancer
Neuroendocrine cancer is a rare type of cancer originating in neuroendocrine cells. These specialised cells are found throughout the body and act like nerve and hormone-producing cells. These tumours can occur in many parts of the body, but are most commonly found in the lungs, pancreas, and gastrointestinal tract (like the stomach and intestines)
A wide range of symptoms can easily be mistaken for more common conditions. And because these cancers are rare, patients and healthcare professionals may not immediately suspect a neuroendocrine cancer. This can lead to misdiagnoses or delays in further investigation.
Campaigners call for better training and education for GPs and other frontline clinicians to recognise the signs of NETs.
About the Royal Free Charity
The Royal Free Charity is an NHS charity supporting the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (RFL). Its vision is for everyone served by RFL to have access to world-leading healthcare, delivered by a thriving workforce and driven by medical research that has a global impact. The charity funds medical research, facilities and services at Barnet, Chase Farm, North Mid and the Royal Free hospitals, all of which is made possible thanks to the generosity of supporters.
For more information about this press release, please contact
Eva Duffy, Head of Communications, Royal Free Charity
Email: eva.duffy@royalfreecharity.org
Mobile: 07398 701244