UEA lecturer recognised for cancer research

17 May 2019, 09:59 | Updated: 17 May 2019, 10:03

A University of East Anglia lecturer has been recognised for his work towards trying to prevent the spread of cancer tumours.

Universities UK has released a list of 'The Nation's Lifesavers' - 100 individuals or groups based in universities across the country, saving lives and making a difference to health and wellbeing.

One of them is Dr Darrell Green at the UEA.

When he was in high school, his best friend Ben Morley developed knee pain. His parents and doctor thought he had been injured in a football match, but when the pain did not go away after a few weeks, he was taken back to hospital and further tests confirmed he had bone cancer. Although Ben was given chemotherapy, he had to have his leg amputated. He went on to develop a secondary tumour in his lungs and passed away in February 2002. He was just 13.

Now a lecturer in Medicine, Dr Green is working to understand what causes and progresses the disease in the hope of finding a cure.

Dr Green performs most of his work via molecular examination of tumours removed from patients after surgery, and metastatic cells, or cells that spread cancer within the body, in the blood.

He hopes that by examining the tumours in a way that has not been performed before, he can discover a treatment that will prevent the spread and growth of secondary tumours, which are almost always the cause of death in cancer patients.