Advisory Board
The Advisory Board of the Wales Cancer Bank (WCB) superseded a Steering group which was originally convened to oversee the initial establishment of the project and this stakeholder group was instrumental in guiding the Cancer Bank through its initial year of existence. The Steering group consisted of representatives from the National Assembly for Wales, Office of Research and Development (WORD), consultant pathologists, professors of clinical and medical oncology, patient and community health council bodies, the commercially successful Wales Cancer Trials Network and members of the WCB executive group and sub-groups
Sub-groups
IT group
Chair – Professor Gerry Thomas. Responsible
for coordinating the central database system
in conjunction with the Database Manager and
liaison with existing information services groups
with the aim to fully integrate the Cancer Bank
database on an all Wales basis.
Sampling
group Chair – Professor David Wynford-Thomas.
Consists of pathologists and technical staff
and was initially responsible for the collation
of sample collection protocols and standard
operating procedures.
Ethics
and Patient liaison group Chair – Mr
Neil Formstone. Consists of representatives
from patient groups across Wales and advised
on patient information sheets and consent forms
compilation. The group will continually monitor
patient involvement and advise on recruitment
procedures from the patient's perspective.
Collection
Management group Chair – Dr Alison
Parry-Jones. Consists of the IT Manager and
the nurses and technicians employed in local
hospitals. All aspects of the day to day collection
are monitored and this group helps to foster
team collaboration as the project is geographically
spread across Wales.
The Wales Cancer Institute
The Wales Cancer Institute was launched in January 2005 to harness the existing cancer research groups around Wales to create a virtual cancer research institute. Cancer is still one of the biggest killers in Wales. It is vital that we get the new research in laboratories to the patient clinics ("from bench to bedside") to provide new and more effective treatments for cancer patients. This can only be achieved by partnership between the relevant organisations.
Bringing together researchers, charities, clinicians, universities and government organisations from all over the principality and co-ordinating the scientific work of the cancer community will then stimulate investment into cancer research in Wales from the main cancer funders in the UK. This will then enable researchers and clinicians to work on new drugs and turn this work into new treatments for patients.
For further information please contact Julia Price at Cardiff University on 029 2068 2102, pricejm@cf.ac.uk
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