Our Story
Against Breast Cancer is the story of the personal crusade of our founders Dr Anthony Leathem and his wife Patricia in their search for a future free of breast cancer.
Today, Against Breast Cancer funds pioneering research by expert clinical scientists at University College London. They use our exceptional collection of breast tissue and patient samples to identify markers that can detect the re-appearance of breast cancer in women already treated for this illness.
Our national Diet & Lifestyle Study of breast cancer survivors involves 3,000 women in 56 hospitals across the UK. It was adopted by the UK National Clinical Research Network in 2005 and is the largest study of its kind in the world.
Thirty years ago Anthony was a pathologist at the Middlesex Hospital (later University College London); his wife Patricia a breast cancer theatre nurse at Oxford's Churchill Hospital. Upset by the number of post mortems he carried out each day on young women with breast cancer, Anthony started carrying out research in breast cancer survival. He had his UCL salary and the backing of the Dean, but no budget for the research itself. Undaunted, the couple took the matter into their own hands - literally.
From small beginnings
Patricia wrote to schools, chambers of commerce and women's organisations. She involved her friends in collecting days outside supermarkets, and set aside a room in her Oxfordshire home to produce all the fundraising materials. She says: "When I held the first cheque for £50, I thought the thrill would last me a lifetime."
Sweet smell of success
Patricia then planted her entire allotment with sweet peas and sold them at her front door accompanied by leaflets explaining the research. "It went phenomenally well", she remembers, "and when the flowers ran out, we switched to ginger cakes." News of Anthony's research and the couple's stellar fundraising efforts soon spread.
Doctor at the tube
What really caught the public imagination and put the charity on a national footing was the sight of Anthony in his white coat outside Oxford Street underground station rattling a tin for his own research. An amazed passer-by went straight to Fleet Street and the press did the rest. Reporters and TV crews descended on Anthony and Patricia's Long Wittenham home to find out more about this extraordinary couple and what they were fighting for. In their first year they raised £15K. In 1987 the Lancet1 published results of Anthony's research which had identified a chemical difference between aggressive and non-aggressive breast cancer cells. Following the worldwide interest generated by this research breakthrough, the couple dipped into their joint salaries to set up a charitable fund. In 1993 Against Breast Cancer was born with Patricia as director. In 1998 she was voted Oxfordshire Woman of the Year.
We've come a long way
In 2010 a team of nine scientists and researchers at UCL's Institute for Women's Health are devoted to carrying out novel research to improve breast cancer detection and survival. Their salaries, equipment and lab space are entirely funded by the goodwill, generosity and tireless efforts of our volunteers, patrons, donors and supporters.
Patricia has now handed over the day-to-day running of the charity to our new director Gordon Vallance but remains very much involved. In October 2009 Anthony officially retired from his UCL post but as Director of the Research Group is a continuing source of inspiration and advice to the team. In fact, he recently moved his microscope into our fundraising office in Abingdon!
In Our Research you can read about the advances Against Breast Cancer's biochemists and researchers have made in their search to prevent secondary spread, increase survival and ultimately discover the holy grail - a vaccine to prevent the disease.
[1] Predictive value of lectin binding on breast-cancer recurrence and survival (Leathem AJ, Brooks SA).Lancet. 1987 May;1(8541):1054-6.
