Small Grants

Aside from supporting headline research projects, ACT provides grants to assist in the treatment and care of those suffering from cancer.

For more information on how to apply for an ACT grant, please click on the link below.

Robot Assisted Surgery Project

February 2024 – Robot Assisted Surgery Project £5,000

We recently gave Royal United Hospital Bath £5,000 towards their Robot Assisted Surgery Project ( Da Vinci Xi Robot and Dual Console). The Da Vinci Xi Dual Console is a powerful teaching tool that enables tandem surgery and training. Surgeons can sit next to their trainees on separate consoles and swap the control of the robotic instruments, immediately at any time. Even though they are physically at a distance, they are always in communication through the microphone system of the consoles. The surgeon can annotate the anatomy on screen, mimic the actions they want the trainee to follow and then hand control over to them to perform the procedure themselves. The DualConsole teaching method is, therefore, time efficient and allows for essential ‘hands-on’ learning.

Find Out More – Transforming lives through Robotic Assisted Surgery at Royal United Hospitals Bath (RUH)

Please visit the Thank you donors video for more details : ROBOTICS SURGERY DONOR THANK YOU !

Royal Surrey County Hospital

September 2023 – Prevent Breast Cancer – £5,000

Prevent Breast Cancer is the only charity which is dedicated to the prediction and prevention of breast cancer, which is the most common cancer in the UK and the biggest cause of death in women aged 35-49 . ACT recently granted £5,000 towards their research project which is investigating the effectiveness of preventative tamoxifen at reducing breast cancer incidence.

Eva Highes was so generous in her time and knowledge showing us around the centre and Clare’s Mum Nuala got a chance to revisit a centre which played a part in treating and ultimately curing her of breast cancer 25 years ago.

Royal Surrey County Hospital

JANUARY 2023 – INSTITUTE OF CANCER RESEARCH – £5,000

The Institute of Cancer research is one of the world’s most influential cancer research organisations who work in a unique partnership with The Royal Marsden hospital. The incidence of thyroid cancer is growing and whilst most are thankfully cured, 10-30% of patients suffer potentially life-threatening relapses. For these patients, there are few options and so there is an urgent need to find new treatments, We spoke about how the £5,000 grant that was awarded by ACT is supporting research into the use of immunotherapy in the treatment of thyroid cancer. It was exciting to hear about their ambitious aim for side-effect free effective treatment and to hear how close they are to clinical trials with patients.

Royal Surrey County Hospital

July 2022 – Wellbeing of Women – £5,000

A grant of £5000 was given to Wellbeing of Women for a 3-year project (June 2020 – June 2023) to develop a risk prediction model for endometrial (womb) cancer. Womb cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women, after breast, lung and bowel cancer and incidences have doubled in the last 20 years. Around 10,000 women are diagnosed annually in the UK and 2,500 die. If caught early surgery is very effective, but fewer than half the women in whom the cancer has spread beyond the womb and into the pelvis will live beyond five years. The end result of this work will be a programme available on a GP’s computer which will have drop down options for responses that will generate a personalised 10-year and lifetime risk of womb cancer.

This tool is being developed by Dr Kitson, a National Institute of Health Research Academic Clinical Lecturer and Sub-specialty trainee in Gynaecological Oncology at the division of cancer services at Manchester University (based at St Mary’s Hospital). We will keep you informed as this important project progresses.

Royal Surrey County Hospital

June 2020 – Leukaemia & Myeloma Research UK – £3,000

This project seeks to develop a free stem cell storage service to families at risk of cancer. The goal is to offer vulnerable families the opportunity to store their baby’s cord blood for 25 years in case the other child, or any other family member, may require it for treatment in future.

October 2019 – King’s College London – Head & Neck Cancer – £5,000

We supported the Centre for Oral, Clinical and Translational Sciences at King’s College London for Head & Neck Cancer patient reconstruction. Professor Luciana Di Silvio’s work focuses on tissue engineering, aiming to regenerate damaged or diseased tissue and helping cancer patients regainthe ability to eat, swallow and talk.

Paul Strickland Scanner Centre (2019)

We supported the Paul Strickland Scanner Centre in their study into establishing Whole-Body MRI as the ‘gold standard’ method for breast cancer patients. This enables ‘precision medicine’ to give the right therapy, for the right patients, at the right time and for the right duration, which could potentially improve survival rates.

Siobhan Mather (2018)

Siobhan, aged two, was diagnosed with Stage 4 neuroblastoma and subsequently underwent various treatments in the UK. To further her chances of a full recovery we supported efforts to bring her a vaccine available only in America.

Following the devastating news that Siobhan passed away at just 4 years of age, we supported research by the GOSH UCL Institute of Child Health into neuroblastoma in her name.

Royal Surrey County Hospital

JULY 2023 – GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL – £4,297.03

Despite advances, cancer is still the biggest killer of children aged one to 14 in the UK and children’s cancer rates are going up. A child doesn’t have to die from cancer for it to take away their life. The current children’s cancer centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) is the largest in the UK but a new centre is needed in order to keep pace. That is why ACT have donated £5000 to GOSH for their #builtitbeatit campaign to create a new children’s cancer centre. A place where new treatments help more children get better.

Royal Surrey County Hospital

March 2022 – Royal Surrey County Hospital – £5,000

In March a grant of £5,000 was awarded to support Targeted Bladder Cancer Therapy Research Project. This research project, lead by tainee urology surgeon Miss Madhavi Natarjan, will further investigate the role of immune cells in bladder cancer patients having cystectomy surgery.

Royal Surrey County Hospital

July 2020 – University Of Surrey – £4,744

In July 2020, £4,744 was awarded to to Dr. Annels’ team at the University of Surrey to support research investigating immunotherapies for bladder cancer.

Spencer McCall

April 2021- Spencer McCall – £5,000

In Feb 2019, a young footballer, Spencer McCall received the diagnosis of Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. After 14 cycles of chemotherapy and 3 major surgeries, he heard the devastating news that the cancer had spread to his lungs. When chemotherapy failed to stop this aggressive cancer, he
searched for alternative therapies abroad with the full support of his UK oncologist.

Many people rallied around to support him with his treatment costs; ACT was delighted to a part of this effort awarding a grant of £5,000. It’s been an incredible & difficult journey; however following promising early results Spencers condition deteriorated. Tragically, Spencer passed away in July 2021 at only 26 years of age. May he rest in peace.

Action Medical Research £2,000

We presented a cheque to Jenny Edward the director of fundraising for Action Medical Research at their Offices in Victoria in June 2019 for £2,000 for Neuroblastoma.. We only gave them £2,000 in 2019 because the year before we had already given them £3,000! In 2018 the year before, you presented a cheque to Professor Anderson at Great Ormond Street on behalf of Action Medical Research. for £3,000 (Photo of you, Clare, Luigi ,your girls and Professor Anderson)

December 2019 – King’s College London – Mental Health Support – £3,000

Our trustees presented Dr Mieke Van Hemelrijck of the TOUR department (translational oncolgy and urology research) with £3,000 for Agustina Bessa, a self funded PhD student to develop and trial a mental well-being support tool for patients with bladder cancer.

Action Medical Research (2018)

Action Medical Research is a children’s charity supporting the research project of Professor John Anderson who is developing a Cancer-specific immunotherapy for the treatment of neuroblastoma.