Yorkshire centre chosen for national breast cancer tissue bank

The move will give scientists nationwide better access to research samples donated by patients under the £10m initiative. Scientists hope around 1,000 specimens will be donated each year before being frozen for storage.

Team leader Valerie Speirs at the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine said: “This will allow us to accelerate things because of the better access nationwide and each small step we take is important because it gives us a little more knowledge about what we are dealing with.”

She said the tissue bank would make it easier to translate findings into benefits for patients.

“The really special thing about it is it has been done by the breast cancer community for the breast cancer community and we are putting the patients at the heart of all of it all,” she added.

Funding of the five-year project has been helped by £1m raised through Asda’s Tickled Pink campaign.

A further £1m came from breast cancer charity Walk the Walk.

Researchers will use the money and samples to extract vital information about the characteristics of anonymous patients’ cancers, gauging the effectiveness of treatments and whether the disease progresses or recurs.

The chairman of the Tissue Bank Management Board, Prof Alastair Thompson, said: “Research using tissues from the bank will lead to better prevention, earlier diagnosis and improved treatments which have the potential to save the lives of many thousands of people.”