The Grand Charity donates £1m
to male cancer research
This year The Grand Charity made its
largest-ever single grant of £1 million
to The Institute of Cancer Research for
research into prostate and testicular cancers.
£100,000 will be paid to the Institute
each year for the next ten years and will fund
the salary of the head of the research centre.
The position will be known as The Grand
Charity of Freemasons' Chair of Molecular
Biology during the period of The Grand
Charity's funding.
The present holder of the post, Professor
Colin Cooper, said: "This is an extremely
generous donation by the Freemasons'
Grand Charity and we are delighted with
their support.
"There is still so much we need to know
about prostate and testicular cancer and
this money will provide vital funds that
will help us to continue our work over
the next ten years."
Professor Cooper addressed The Grand
Charity's General Meeting in Birmingham
on 16th October 2004. The following is an
extract from his speech:
"Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer
in men in the UK. About 27,000 men are
diagnosed each year. A fundamental problem
exists in that it is not possible to predict how
early prostate cancer, which is still localised
to the prostate (for example, detected by the
PSA blood test), will behave.
"Some cases may remain dormant
for many years without progressing (the
pussycats) while others will progress rapidly
to malignancy (the tigers).
"Doctors need to identify the patients
who must be treated, and separate them
from those patients who can be managed
by active surveillance, thus sparing the
latter from the adverse consequences of
unnecessary treatment, including impotence
in a high proportion of cases. In short a
tiger/pussycat test is needed.
"My team has already made a recent
breakthrough with a discovery of a prostate
gene called E2F3. This is an important
observation, and with the aid of support
from the Grand Charity, we are now
assessing whether E2F3 can be used as
the elusive tiger/pussycat test."
The Grand Charity has now given over
£3.2 million to various cancer charities.
Previous grants include £500,000 to each of
Macmillan Cancer Relief and Beating Bowel
Cancer, £446,000 to Sargent Cancer Care,
£373,278 to Cancer Research UK and over
£100,000 to each of the Institute of Cancer
Research and Breast Cancer Campaign.
The payment of £1 million to a single
organisation is unprecedented and will
make a significant difference to the work
of the Institute of Cancer Research.
The Grand Charity hopes that Professor
Cooper's team will quickly progress its
understanding of the causes and treatment
of testicular and prostate cancer and will
make more important discoveries during
the funding period.
Launch of Gift Aid Envelope Scheme
The Grand Charity has launched a Gift Aid
Envelope Scheme for the Relief Chest Fund
and the Grand Charity General Fund so that
tax relief can be claimed on donations made
to alms collections, festive boards and ladies
nights etc.
Using Gift Aid Envelopes means that for
every £1 donated, the charity receives an
extra 28 pence from the Inland Revenue.
The donors are getting more for their
charitable donations at no extra cost to
them and charities benefit.
To find out more about how the scheme
works, contact the Grand Charity Relief
Chest office on 020 7395 9246.
A separate envelope is also available for
the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys
(RMTGB), which also attracts the tax relief.
The envelopes are free and are available
by contacting the Trust directly on 0207 405
2644. Guidance notes are available to assist
the Lodge representative to return the
envelopes and donations in the correct
way to the Trust.
Also, remember that higher rate
taxpayers can nominate the RMTGB to
receive the higher rate tax relief available by
entering its unique code VAE64 YG when
completing their tax return. The special
code for the Grand Charity for higher rate
taxpayers is PAK03BG.
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Professor Colin Cooper heads research
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