Help Dennis Beat the Menace
In the beginning the Ninewells Campaign set out to raise £1m and asked the public to Help Dennis Beat the Menace. That appeal brought Professor Roland Wolf to Dundee and led to the creation of the Biomedical Research Centre at Ninewells. The Centre now has over 130 medical scientists who concentrate on environmental and genetic factors in cancer.

It was clear even from that early campaign that the over-riding objective was to put Dundee and Ninewells at the forefront of the battle against the scourge of cancer.

Help Dennis Treat the Menace
Stage Two involved a partnership with Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) and the Hospital Trust to raise money to improve both the quality of research and the quality of treatment for cancer patients at Ninewells. This time, the objective was explained by the appeal ‘mantra’ Help Dennis to Treat the Menace. This campaign raised over £4m which led to the appointments of three new clinical oncologists:

Professor Alastair Munro
Professor Elaine Rankin
Professor Bob Steele

as well as the development of the Princess Alexandra Centre with its own separate entrance to the cancer wards.

Help Dennis KO the Cancer
The third phase of the Ninewells Cancer Campaign, this time in partnership with the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC) raised £5.3 m under the theme of Help Dennis KO the Cancer. This initiative brought together the unique skills of Professor Sir David Lane, discoverer of the p53 gene and an internationally acclaimed cancer specialist with the world leading micro-surgeon, Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri, to create the world’s first Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology and speed up the links between the basic science and the evolving new treatments.

Personalised Medicine

Our most recent campaign has focused on Personalised Medicine. Professor Wolf explains:

Drugs which have been used for about 50 years to kill cancer cells are often not effective because the drug cannot identify a vulnerable part of the tumour to attack it. So the patient can suffer distressing side effects, often without benefit. But we are confident that we can change all that, so that patients can receive a drug at the correct dose which will home in on their tumour with a much greater probability of success. We call it Personalised Medicine. To this end, we are now planning to create at Ninewells a research centre of global significance.

Thanks to your generosity, we have succeeded in raising £1.5 million to build essential new laboratories for Personalised Medicine. This money is vital to our progress, and with your help, Dundee research may yet rid the world of the scourge of cancer..

A Major Player in Cancer Research
The Ninewells Cancer Campaign also successfully attracts money for breast cancer, liver cancer and leukaemia research. In particular , Breast Cancer Research (Scotland) has in recent times put £1m into supporting the work of the breast cancer specialist at Ninewells, Mr Alastair Thompson. The campaign was also instrumental in attracting £1.5 m from the Barbara Stewart Foundation to support the development of the Scottish Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) Unit at Ninewells under the direction of Professor Jimmy Ferguson. PDT uses the combination of a laser light and a drug to selectively destroy certain cancers.

Dundee is now known internationally as a major player in cancer research, a fact which has been established not only by the quality of the science and medicine which goes on here, but also through the dedicated fund-raising over the last decade by Dr Jacqui Wood and her colleagues, ably supported by Dennis.

Dundee is among the top three cancer research centres in the world. Leading scientists are being attracted here all the time. Just recently, plans were unveiled for a major collaboration between Scottish Enterprise, four Scottish Medical schools and a giant international pharmaceutical company. The hub for this will be at Ninewells Hospital.