A £25 million research centre puts Queen's at the front line in the battle against cancer, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
Senator George Mitchell, the man who chaired the talks which led to the Good Friday agreement, has formally opened Queen's University's £25 million (€35 million) cancer research centre in Belfast.
Surgeons, researchers and politicians hope the new investment will force the pace of change and revolutionise treatment of cancer.
The Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology (CCRCB) facility will house more than 300 researchers from around the world who are working to stop the spread of cancer. They will co-operate with the Northern Ireland Clinical Cancer Centre at the Belfast City Hospital just a short walk away.
The opening was attended by First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness who praised the centre as a positive development for Northern Ireland. Belfast's Lord Mayor Jim Rodgers also attended.
Senator Mitchell, the Chancellor of Queen's University, said the research facility would place Northern Ireland "in the front line of the worldwide crusade to tackle cancer".
Pointing to the centre's array of international links, he added: "The international dimension of the centre's work is crucial. Cancer does not recognise boundaries or geographical frontiers.
"The battle to defeat it must also be waged on a global scale. It is through international research partnerships and the sharing of information that we can create a powerful synergy to combat cancer for the betterment of everyone."
An international research partnership involving the university and the Indian Ministry of Biotechnology has already been established to develop new ways of understanding and treating the disease. The centre also has a close association with the all-Ireland National Cancer Institute.
Prof Paddy Johnston, director of the CCRCB, said the opening marked a "major milestone for Northern Ireland and Queen's in launching an international centre for excellence in cancer research and care".
He added: "This centre will allow us to play our role as a leader in the fight against the cancer."
The centre marked good working relationships involving Queen's, the health service and industry. Such teamwork, he said, would be carried out in a spirit of clinical research.
CCRCB will cost the university some £5 million per annum to run, but it is anticipated that for each £1 sterling invested in research, some £3.50 will be returned from other sources.
Student intake into the medical and research field has already increased by nearly one-third to some 250 students per year.
Prof Roy Spence, a consultant surgeon with more than 30 years' experience dealing with cancer sufferers, told The Irish Times how the new centre would revolutionise cancer treatment and research. "This centre is extremely important as it brings together the scientists who are doing cancer research with those of us who are surgeons and physicians dealing with patients.
"We recognise the problems involved in dealing with patients. If we can bring those problems to the pure scientists in close proximity and work together, then we have teamwork. That is the key word."
He said the importance of the investment exceeded the boundaries of Northern Ireland.
"We have a very small community, they tend not to go anywhere else so we do know what happens to them over the long term. But we are too small to work on our own, so we have to internationalise.
"There are scientists coming in here now that the Troubles are over and I have no doubt that will give an even more positive future for our cancer patients," Prof Spence said.
"There are a couple of cross-Border dimensions. We are hoping that patients who live in Co Donegal and who are quite far away from Dublin will have access to radiotherapy here in Belfast.
"In due course, the Republic's Centres of Excellence in terms of research, particularly in relation to breast cancer, can join with our team here and vice versa. We can learn from each other and work with each other.
"Now that the Troubles are over we hope we can bring back some of the good people who left in the 1970s and 1980s, who are now mature scientists. We hope they can come back and work with us here in Belfast. We also hope that we can send to other parts of the world young, energetic and keen scientists to learn and train who will then come back to us in due course.
"I do some research with [ Prof] Paddy Johnston. I think that the spirit of togetherness - the clinical field and the research labs - offers great hope."