Professor Ruth Plummer delivers Chai’s Online 2023 Annual Natalie Shipman Memorial Lecture

‘Taking new cancer drugs to the patient’ was the topic of Chai’s 2023 annual Natalie Shipman Memorial Lecture.

More than 200 people tuned in to listen to Keynote Speaker, Professor Ruth Plummer, Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine, Newcastle University.

Natalie z’l, daughter of Susan Shipman, Chai’s founder president, was one of the catalysts that inspired Chai’s inception over thirty-two years ago. She was diagnosed with cancer when she was two years old and sadly passed away from a brain tumour just before her eighth birthday.

Chai Chairman, Louise Hager welcomed guests and gave an update on what has been happening at Chai during the past year. She explained: “Holding the lecture online enables us to reach so many more people across the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and of course Israel, where of course our thoughts and prayers are with everyone. We are currently supporting just over 4,000 cancer patients and their loved ones aged 3-98. This year 1,035 new clients have needed to turn to Chai – the largest number ever. Whenever we quote these figures it is always with mixed emotions because we just wish there wouldn’t be the need. But while there is, Chai is here. There has also been a marked change in the demographic of our clients, with one in three now aged 50 and under.”

Dr Adrian Tookman – Chairman of Chai’s Medical Advisory Panel (MAP) who before introducing Professor Plummer spoke about how wonderful it is to work with Chai’s team of expert MAPs who regularly advise the organisation and shape its development.

Professor Ruth Plummer began by outlining the focus of the lecture – to discuss where new drugs are found; early phase trials; academic drug discovery in Newcastle and partnerships.

Speaking of the challenging timelines of drugs from research to development, Professor Plummer said: “I do clinical development of drugs and that has traditionally taken 6-8 years. One of the good things I’ve seen in the last 20 years is this timeline coming down.”

She then went on to talk about Phase I (safety), Phase II (Screening studies) and Phase III (Pre-registration study) trials, explaining, “In non-cancer medicine, studies to work out dosing schedule, side effects and the level of toxicity are done in healthy volunteers, but you can’t do that with cancer drugs. As oncologists we are trying to treat cells that have gone catastrophically wrong and so we have never done healthy volunteer studies. The patients I see are prepared to take something experimental and they are really contributing to research.”

She recalled how in 2003 she had written the first prescription for a cancer patient ever to be given a PARP Inhibitor (a type of targeted cancer drug) and described it as “one of the seminal moments in a career I’ve had that’s been a huge privilege.”

Concluding the lecture, Professor Plummer spoke about leading the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre. She said, “Since we’ve opened, we’ve had an increasing number of trials and see more than a thousand patient visits a year. We have a waiting list of patients who would like a trial and the patients I see often say, if it doesn’t help me, it may help someone else. That is an incredibly generous thing that people do at the end of their journey to help us work out dose and side effects of new cancer drugs.”

The lecture, which was followed by a Q&A, was a great success with much positive feedback. As one participant put it: “Professor Plummer was fantastic! Thank you for the opportunity to watch this fascinating and insightful lecture.”

To watch the lecture, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/live/-PLn5EcwF-8?si=HUw7XhDkhn-jgUby