Actor Clara Darcy will share her remarkable story of life, love, dancing and brain surgery on BBC Radio 4 later this month.
Her play ‘We Should Definitely Have More Dancing’ was inspired by her experiences after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at the base of her skull called a chordoma, in July 2019.
Some of Greater Manchester’s world-leading brain scientists will showcase their work in a day of activities and talks at Manchester Central Library on Saturday 18 March.The brain controls everything we do or think but one in six of us will be affected by a...
A big thankyou to the wonderful women who work at the Jeff and who contributed to our International Women's day. Thank you for giving us an insight into your research careers. We are proud to be working among such inspiring female leaders and IWD2023 was all about...
Professor Stuart Allan is at the forefront of stroke recovery research and is leading a team of researchers working on the next generation of clot-busting medication. Find out more in this episode of the Recovery After Stroke podcast.
“The POBIG study is a team effort, working alongside neurosurgeons, oncologists, nurses, radiologists, physicists, and pathologists, and importantly patient support groups like the Brainstrust. Besides the novelty of irradiating the tumour before surgery, other innovative aspects are that we base the diagnosis on imaging so as not to delay the treatment. Crucially we don’t irradiate the whole tumour, only the part where the neurosurgeon believes the remnants will be left behind. This prevents interference with the standard clinical pathway of looking into specific tumour characteristics and offers unique opportunities to develop more personalised treatment strategies against this life-limiting disease. We are very pleased with how Joel has responded to this treatment and the result so far is very encouraging. We are hopeful this technique could improve outcomes for all patients like Joel in the future.”
Professor Simona Parrinello (UCL Cancer Institute) will be giving a talk about the Glioblastoma and the GEMM preclinical models she has developed. This will be a hybrid event and will take place at the Michael Smith Lecture Theatre, University of Manchester, on the 26/01 at 14:30.
A major research project to help improve treatments for Parkinson’s disease will take place at Manchester Metropolitan University, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA) and the Walton Centre (NHS Trust Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery) in Liverpool. The project will be led by, investigator in our centre’s Parkinson’s theme, Professor Nicola Ray, Manchester Metropolitan’s Department of Psychology and her Co-Investigators at the NCA, Walton Centre and The University of Manchester. Professor Ray developed the ideas for the project from work she and the team have undertaken with funding from Health Innovation Manchester.
Funding has been awarded through the dual-award PhD programme between the University of Melbourne and University of Manchester. The dual-award scheme brings together research teams between the two institutions with a PhD student assigned to each. This is a highly competitive scheme with just six dual awards (twelve students) made across both Universities in all disciplines. For our researchers to secure two of these awards is therefore a fantastic achievement.
Post-stroke cognitive decline is one of the most distressing complications in stroke survivors, occurring in up to a third of those affected by stroke within five years. Laura Parkes, Craig Smith and Stuart Allan have been awarded funding to track changes in the brain over months and years in people who have suffered a stroke. The Imaging Hub will be based in Manchester, with $780k funding for research scans and an imaging scientist to work with Dr Parkes and her team.
Hema Mistry successfully ran the Manchester Half Marathon on Sunday 9 October. Hema finished the race in a very impressive 2:05 raising over £900 for vascular dementia research in our centre.
Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre
Clinical Sciences Building
Northern Care Alliance
NHS Foundation Trust
Salford
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Email: GJBRC@manchester.ac.uk
Actor Clara Darcy will share her remarkable story of life, love, dancing and brain surgery on BBC Radio 4 later this month.
Her play ‘We Should Definitely Have More Dancing’ was inspired by her experiences after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at the base of her skull called a chordoma, in July 2019. This slow-growing type of cancer at this location affecting the deepest vital parts of the brain and cranial nerves is found in fewer than 25 people in the UK every year.
By the time Clara was diagnosed, her tumour had reached the size of a fist. A week later, Salford Royal Neurosurgeon and Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre Strategy Lead Professor Omar Pathmanaban led a successful 14-hour operation to remove it.
After that, she had eight weeks of proton-beam therapy, a pioneering form of radiotherapy.
The Manchester team have the largest experience of surgery and proton beam therapy for these rare tumours in the UK and treat patients from across the country and further afield.
Only a month after finishing treatment, she began working with writer Ian Kershaw on the life-affirming play, which is based on the notes and diary she kept at the time.
She explained: “I didn’t want to forget anything – particularly not knowing if my brain would ever work in the same way again, if I would ever remember any of it or if I would even be the same person coming out the other side of surgery.
"I really wanted to tell the story, and the actual process of writing it was therapeutic and cathartic.
“I would not still be here if it weren’t for the exceptional care I received from the NHS at every step of the way. It felt incredibly important to share my experiences and lessons learned, particularly as I am very much one of the lucky ones. When you have a near-death experience, you can’t help but come back from it with a whole new perspective on life.”
The life-affirming play even features an actor playing Prof Pathmanaban, who said: “It’s a huge honour and novel experience for me to be characterised in this fantastic production, I encourage everyone to listen and experience Clara’s remarkable journey through her personal dramatization.”
In its original form as a stage play “We Should Definitely Have More Dancing” premiered at Oldham Coliseum last year and toured the country before ending at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was published as a playtext before being commissioned for Radio 4, It was published as a playtext before being commissioned for Radio 4 and is available on BBC Sounds.
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