It’s that time of year again when we start to get ready of our charity bike ride to help raise funds for liver and pancreas cancer research in Leicester. This is a team effort and involves patients, surgeons, research fellows, specialist nurses, clinical support worker, theatre staff, scientists, anaesthetists, hospital nurses, senior managers, general practitioners and community nurses, family, friends and colleagues from the pharmaceutical industry who all come together and work extremely hard for months in their own time to prepare for this charity event.Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease that affects up to 8,000 people each year in the UK, it’s the 4th commonest fatal cancer in the UK with a worst survival than any other cancer.It is very difficult to treat at any stage but sadly due to the fact that it generally presents when quite advanced the majority of patients cannot be cured. Liver cancers are most frequently caused by tumours which have spread from the bowel and affect around 18,000 people each year. If surgery is possible the outcome is dramatically improved. The department of hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery (HPB) at Leicester General Hospital regularly conducts research into the causes and treatments of these cancers. Unfortunately there is very little money available from the government or major charities who concentrate on better known cancers (breast, lung and prostate). Everyone involved in this charity event realises the importance of raising money to support the research being done in Leicester by our young surgeons and scientists. Organising studies and analysing samples to help us learn and understand the processes involved in the development and resistance of cancers is very expensive and as a consequence we need to find ways of raising money to ensure that this vital work can continue.