Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

We began this fundraising in memory of Brid who passed away in October 2014 after a long battle with Ovarian Cancer.   She was concerned about the lack of awareness of ovarian cancer and the absence of direct funding for ovarian cancer research.  Her wish was that we would do some fundraising to support Ovarian Cancer Research and to create an awareness of this disease.   

In 2015, we organised a number of fundraising events, which were very successful.  We were fortunate to be selected by the Rundonegal
committee as their charity to start the fundraising and it was a huge success.

We are delighted that the Rundonegal Womens 5k have chosen us again this year to be their beneficiary.

Along with Breakthrough Cancer Research (BCR) in Cork, we co-funded a 3-year PhD Scholarship in the Cork Cancer Research Centre (CCRC) in Cork.  The successful student was Ms Jennifer Quinn who commenced her research in June 2016.   This Research Centre was established to facilitate the interaction between scientists and clinical cancer specialists in the university hospitals. The Centre has a focus on poor prognosis cancers (i.e. those cancers with low survival rate), Ovarian Cancer being one of these.

Survival rates for ovarian cancer are poor, as low as 20% according to recent studies, but the really terrible thing is that this situation has not improved in over 20 years.

As the funding will be administered through BCR and University College Cork, 100% of this donation will go directly to research.  It is the vision of BCR and CCRC that investment in research and people is the way forward in making progress to fight cancer.   This funding therefore,
will not only contribute to Ovarian Cancer Research – but also to the training of an individual who will then be a specialist in ovarian cancer biology.   

The funding of research is key to providing hope for the future.

The research project is being supervised by Dr Sharon McKenna (a lead scientist in CCRC).  Her team have been investigating why certain cancers initially respond to treatment – but then come back and are extremely difficult to treat.  This is, unfortunately a common feature of
ovarian cancer.  This team has shown that cancer cells use a process called ‘Autophagy’, to help them evade treatment and grow back again. This new project will examine autophagy in ovarian cancer cells and how to overcome it to make treatment a long-term success.

As we believe that research is the only way forward we have decided to continue supporting Ovarian Cancer Research.  The support and response we got was amazing, and we were absolutely delighted to co-fund the 3 year Scholarship for Ovarian Cancer Research which will be established in her name.  

We are extremely grateful for your support and hope you will continue supporting this very worthy cause.