The North West Cancer Research Institute, part of the North Wales Medical School, recently received a generous legacy donation of £95,000 which has been used to purchase state of the art equipment to support the school’s research in cancer cell biology and pharmacology.
Ms. Mair Roberts, friend of Bangor University, made a bequest in her will to support the North West Cancer Research Institute and wished that her legacy would aid their research programmes and projects.
The new equipment is designed to dispense cells and compounds accurately and efficiently, allowing researchers to study the impact that various combinations of drugs in different concentrations have on cancer cells.
The main investment has been the purchase of a real time cell metabolic analysis machine which studies how cancer cells generate energy from the sugar glucose to support their high rates of cell growth and division, enabling researchers to explore which drugs inhibit the cells’ ability to use glucose to maintain growth and survival.
The equipment will be used by postdoctoral researchers, PhD and Masters students. It will also be used by undergraduates studying pharmacology and on the pharmacy degree that the University plans to launch in September 2025.
The work of the department is being led by Dr Jonathan Blank, who recently joined the University having worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector in the US.
He said: “ This kit will support early research which is crucial in the ongoing work to develop safe and effective ways to treat and ultimately cure cancer. It will make a significant difference to the efficiency of our work, enabling us to perform experiments on a larger scale more accurately and reproducibly on multiple cancer cell types.
As these pieces of equipment are used in the pharmaceutical industry it will also help our students make the smooth transition from academia to industry should they choose to pursue that career path.”
