Susan Richman from the Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology obtained £1120 from the Medical Research Council (MRC)  to fund a stand  at the MRC’s Festival of Medical Research.  The stand titled, ‘So, just what is personalised Medicine?’ was split into three sections, with the first aiming to bust the stigma around bowel cancer screening, incorporating a game and a competition.

The second highlighted the work of the MRC-funded S-CORT Stratification in Colorectal Cancer, which accesses and retrieves colorectal tumour samples from around the UK (over 3000 in total) for molecular profiling. This aims to provide a wealth of information and help to guide researchers to identify which patients will respond to particular chemotherapy regimens, or radiotherapy regimens or indeed respond to targeted therapies.

The final stand highlighted the FOCUS4 clinical trial which recruits patients who have advanced bowel cancer. The trial works on the premise that molecular tests can be applied to patient tumours which can lead to the allocation of each patient to the therapy, where they are likely to gain the most benefit – the perfect example of personalised medicine in action.