Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

This time last year I couldn't even run for 30 minutes without stopping, now I'm planning on running 13.1 miles in the ABP Southampton Half marathon on April 26th! Why you may ask!?  Well, along with being a huge personal challenge for me I wanted to help raise funds for a brand new centre for Cancer Immunology, right here in Southampton.

Our goal is to raise £25m to open a state-of-the-art Centre for Cancer Immunology at the University of Southampton in 2017. Our fundraising efforts will involve corporate partners, trusts and foundations, as well as gifts from individuals.

Cancer is one of the main causes of death worldwide, and with our ageing population, it’s becoming much more common. In the UK, one in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime.
Research at the University of Southampton is discovering how immunotherapy can enable the body’s immune system to recognise and kill cancer cells. Your immune system is the best weapon you have against cancer, but cancer cells are clever and hard to defeat. Immunotherapy is a revolutionary new treatment, supercharging your body’s natural defences to find and destroy cancer.
Our groundbreaking research, using the body’s immune system to eradicate cancer is so powerful, it can last a lifetime. The University of Southampton is the UK leader in cancer immunology research. Our exciting discoveries are now moving from laboratory into clinical trials, where they are already making a life-changing difference to people with cancer.
Immunotherapy treatments developed at Southampton not only destroy visible cancer cells but also seek out and eradicate hidden cancers in other parts of the body. Potentially, they can give our bodies a lifetime of immunity.

The new Centre will be located at Southampton General Hospital and partnered with the planned Francis Crick Institute in London, a major international centre for biomedical research. We aim to double the number of people working on cancer immunology and ultimately double the number of patients taking part in clinical trials.
The Centre will be home to world-class research facilities, a clinical trials unit, a suite of molecular biology laboratories and a pre-clinical immunology lab, investigating the complex interaction of cancer and the immune system. We will recruit at least 50 new research staff who will work together to build on the exciting progress already made in the field of cancer immunology.
For more info about the campaign visitwww.southampton.ac.uk/youreit
Thank you for your time and generous donations. The cure for cancer? Youre it!