Team Verrico &
Sheffield University
BREAKING NEWS... RESEARCH PAPER PUBLISHED
It is with deep gratitude that I can now share that research was published on 9 November 2023 in the journal ‘Frontiers in Immunology’ (attached) which shows that if certain tests are performed, new ways of identifying high risk of relapse are possible. In addition, the decision to administer immunotherapy as a secondary treatment can be better informed by observing the behaviour of certain immune cells which regulate the body’s ability to fend off disease.
Team Verrico funded that research – it is the culmination of a decade of work.
Pushing the research envelope and developing medical science is the long term answer to successful cancer treatment. Research is time consuming, costly and slow. As a small charity, we have been punching above our weight in seed funding first stage cancer projects at Cardiff, Brighton and Sheffield. In the past 7 years, Team Verrico has supported 4 individual projects in the Oncology Dept at the University of Sheffield (2 in Claire Lewis’s lab and 1 in Munitta Muthana’s lab). We have entrusted our hopes with Claire and Munitta. Over those 7 years, their teams have received funding from Team Verrico for the following projects:
Project 1:
In 2016: Team Verrico awarded Claire’s lab £15,000 to fund the consumables for a project investigating the role of white blood cells called macrophages in limiting the way triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) respond to chemotherapy given before surgery (and the way they sadly often relapse with the formation of metastases). TNBC is the disease which killed Anna Verrico. The project was delayed as the technician working part-time on the project left shortly after it began, but over the last 2 years, a hard working postdoc in Claire’s lab, Dr Mohammed Moamin, worked with her to complete the study, and get it written up as a research article. Mohammed was actually working full-time on another TV-funded project during this time (see Project 2 below) but happy to commit some of his spare time in the evenings to finish Project 1. This has now been done and a research article been submitted to the prestigious US cancer journal, Clinical Cancer Research.
Project 2.
Since 2019, Team Verrico has awarded Claire’s group a series of grants (£21,250 in 2019; £25,000 in 2020; £22,091 in 2021 and £19,147 in 2022) to fund the development of a new combination of 2 existing drugs (Plerixafor and Bevacizumab) that target bone metastases in experimental breast cancer models. To date, they have shown that this markedly reduces the formation of bone metastases in 2 models of TNBC and investigated the possible targets/cells in the bone that mediate this effect.
Project 3.
Munitta’s Team V project.
Katy Moyes working in the Sheffield University cancer research laboratory
What this challenge is funding
This year, a breakthrough was made in Claire’s group. In the research article they submitted to Clinical Cancer Research on Project 1, they describe a new way of identifying which women with TNBC are highly likely to suffer metastases within 3 years of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery. These women would then be monitored more closely after the cessation of treatment so any metastases that form can be detected and treated early. This would greatly increase their life prospects and save others from the invidious fate which befell Anna Verrico. Claire’s group also reported in this paper on a possible reason why immunotherapy (a new form of treatment now given to TNBC patients before and after surgery) is only successful for some women and not others.
We now need to raise the funds for a 12-month project in which Claire’s group will do the work necessary lab work to move these findings closer to the clinic (i.e. routine application in Oncology clinics across the UK). That project is going to cost £52,000. Katy Moyes (pictured) is doing the day to day work on the project.
That is the goal of my 10/10/10 challenge. It’s an ambitious goal, but an achievable one, with your support. Any business or benefactor wanting to visit the lab to see the work being undertaken is very welcome.
Can I see the Project First Hand?
Yes – if you’d like to visit the laboratory at the University of Sheffield, we can arrange a visit for you to talk to the team and see how this life saving work is being carried out.
Contact details: Paul Verrico can be contacted here : 07770 678808 paulverrico@hotmail.co.uk
I’M LOOKING FOR:
• Ten friends to run with
• Ten businesses to sponsor a marathon each
• £10 from you towards the cause