iCancer campaign aims to raise £2 million for cure to NET cancer which killed Steve Jobs
Apple earns enough in just seven minutes to fund research into an experimental cancer treatment which may have saved the life of its co-founder, Steve Jobs.
Gene therapists in Sweden, Prof Magnus Essand and Dr Justyna Leja of Uppsala University have created a virus which can destroy a neuroendocrine tumour, or NET, the relatively rare and slow growing cancer which Jobs was diagnosed with in 2003.
However, because Essand and Leja have published the results of their studies they cannot get a patent for the “cancer eating” virus. Without a patent businesses will not fund human trials (which will cost around £2 million) as there is no profit to be made, meaning this possible cure will just be thrown away.
Friday 5 October will not only mark the one-year anniversary of Steve Jobs passing but also the launch of the iCancer campaign. Spearheaded by author and writer Alexander Masters - whose editor Dido Davies has fought NET - and director of communications at the University of Roehampton, Dominic Nutt - who has NET – iCancer wants to take the cause to the people and raise the money for human trials through crowd-sourcing.
In one of his articles, published in The Telegraph, Masters commented: “Only a proper human clinical trial can tell if this new treatment will eat up human tumours, too.
"If the virus works, it could benefit not just the tens of thousands of people with Nets worldwide, but other cancer patients as well, because it could be adapted to attack many types of tumour.”
More information about iCancer and how to donate can be found at - http://icancer.org.uk/