Club Meeting

7 February 2019  QubitFluorometer – Dawn Broomfield

Our speaker was Dawn Broomfield, who is the Community Fundraising Manager for the University of Nottingham. She spoke to us about the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre which is part of the University and based at the Medical School at QMC.

She explained that many of the children who suffer a brain tumour will be left with a disability, but brain tumour research still only receives less than 1% of the UK’s Cancer funding.  The Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre was launched 22 years ago thanks to a donation from Sir Peter Mansfield (the inventor of the MRI scanner).  One of their research projects, the Headsmart campaign, has helped reduce the diagnosis of children’s brain tumours from 14 weeks to 7 weeks.  She gave examples of some children’s experiences (Daniel and Jessica) and explained that before they had the Qubit fluorometer they had to send DNA samples out to a specialist contractor for up to £200/sample. With their QF they can analyse their own results, get the results immediately and do not need to use as many samples for analysis.

Our Club gave the University a cheque for £1,550 which will be used to purchase a Qubit Fluorometer, a device which identifies how much usable DNA is available for testing in tumour samples. Damaged DNA can contribute to the occurrence of brain tumours so finding out how much DNA is available for testing is essential for research staff at the centre.                                                                                  DE/AR