Keep Aaron Cutting

Amidst all the vileness of the events of the last few days are some positive stories and the launch of “Keep Aaron Cutting” is one of these. You can find the details on http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/53039/appeal-keep-tottenham-barber-aaron-biber-cutting-after-riot-damage.
In brief an 89 year old barber who has run his barber shop in Tottenham over several decades turned up on Sunday to find it had been looted – even the kettle had been stolen. Some interns at a London advertising agency, BBH, wanted to show that both social media and young people can be a force for good and set up a campaign to raise money to refurbish the shop. The excess money will go to the community.
This story touched me and reminded me of how a barber played a very important role in my father’s life. My paternal grandfather died while my father was at university in South Africa studying medicine. The family had no money but all the six children were very musical and well taught. He took his classical talents and set up a jazz band and played in night clubs at night and studied during the day and put himself through medical school in this way – this by the way was during the 1930s.
Every two weeks (until he died) he would go to the barber for a haircut. The barber’s name was Nissel Burlin. He had a barber shop in the centre of Johannesburg and had come to South Africa as an immigrant. His wife had a shop next door called Bridal Fabrics and the material for my wedding dress came from there. The family went on to success in the fabric business running a large wholesale company but Nissel still cut hair in his barber shop.
When my father had to go to Edinburgh to qualify as a surgeon – this wasn’t possible in South Africa then. The journey both ways was by ship and he was going to be away several months. This was before the days of international phone calls or even airmail! He gave Nissel power of attorney to look after his affairs and in case anything should happen, because he trusted him, he was familiar with business which my grandmother wasn’t. He had saved a bit of money and was persuaded to play the stock market. Without really understanding the consequences he acted on a tip that a certain share was certain to fall in price and sold them short. (Short selling is the selling of a stock or share that the seller doesn't own. The broker lends it to you from their own inventory – within a time period you have to cover the shares, ie buy them in reality, and if the price drops you can buy them back at a lower price and make a profit on the difference.)
In this case the price did not drop but rose and the shares had to be bought at a higher price and the difference paid to the broker. My father did not have the money in his account – any spare cash he had went with him to Edinburgh to pay for his living expenses.
Nissel covered the shortfall and only told my father when he returned some months later. My father was horrified and Nissel told him not to worry- “Doctor I think you are a good investment”. Of course the money was repaid in full and they remained firm friends until my father’s death in 1968. I am forever grateful to Nissel’s son Percy who has looked after my father’s grave in Johannesburg in our absence.
So Aaron – it is payback time and my donation to the campaign to keep you cutting is in memory of Nissel and my father.

Flying free or freefall?

It is almost a month since I separated from the "mother ship". I haven't really experienced what it is like not to work full time as I departed for a couple of glorious weeks in Los Angeles staying with my sister and family two days after leaving Breast Cancer Campaign. Los Angeles is quite a surreal environment coming from rainy London (the sun always shines in Southern California....) and the only hint that life had changed forever was that there were so few emails and I risked leaving my phone behind a couple of times.

Back home I am now coming to grips with life without IT support! Over the past two days I have managed to link my computer to my printer wirelessly and discover that my printer is the wrong sort to link wirelessly to the ipad. I have worked out how to synchronise my contacts and calendar to the ipad and iphone - losing the appointments for the rest of the month when I tried to dedupe things that were appearing twice before realising that all I had to do was hide one of the calendars. How stupid does one feel phoning people saying, I know I have an appointment for next week and was it Monday at 10?

The week started with lectures at the Mansion House exploring aspects of the modern City and focusing on how urban design and open spaces contribute to the effectiveness of the City as a modern workplace. Transport was not mentioned - London would be the most livable city if it were not for its inadequacy. Buses take too long and the underground is a nightmare - a blot on the landscape.

Tuesday was a very jolly day on the Thames following the "swan upping" with the Needlemakers. As we were in an antique barge words like "jolly" spring to mind. For the uninitiated - this is a tradition where the cygnets on the Thames are marked and claimed for the Queen and for the Worshipful Company of Dyers and the Vintners. There were about fifty of us and we had a lovely afternoon with lunch and wine starting off at Maidenhead. It is a long time since I have been on that part of the river and it is so beautiful. We were subject to a couple of showers but, hey, we're British, this doesn't phase us.

Next week I am attending a tasting of 200 of the top award-winning spirits and liqueurs courtesy of the Worshipful Company of Distillers - I can see this is going to be a tough year in the City!

PS If you want to know how long it takes to go from hero to zero - 24 hours! I emailed a couple of (former) colleagues the day after leaving Campaign to find that my emails went straight into the spam filter. That's putting me in my place!

Research result for Health Bill campaign

If you have been following Breast Cancer Campaign on Facebook or Twitter you will see that we have been campaigning for the Government to include a specific duty on the Secretary of State for Health and the new clinical commissioning groups to promote research. The changes that the Government is proposing to make to the Health Bill were announced yesterday and this is included.

We are obviously delighted that the Government has agreed to this – and thanks to all our staff and supporters for contacting their MPs and spreading the word to family and friends. As you can see it made a real difference.

The specific research mentions in the document published by the Government are a new duty for the Secretary of State to promote research; for clinical commissioning groups to promote research and innovation and the use of research evidence, in line with the current duty on the NHS Commissioning Board. They have pledged to ensure that a culture of research and innovation is embedded in the arrangements for both the Board and Public Health England. Finally, to make sure that clinical commissioning groups and the NHS Commissioning Board ensure that treatment costs for patients who are taking part in research funded by Government and Research Charity partner organisations are funded through normal arrangements for commissioning patient care, as set out in existing guidance.

Of course, colleagues here will continue to follow progress with the Bill closely to see how these pledges translate into amendments and to see what other issues relating to research we can promote, now we have so many MPs committed to being research champions.

I would say watch this space – but rather become a fan on Campaign’s Facebook page or follow us on Twitter, and watch THAT space.

The best brains in breast cancer research

I was going to call this blog “This IS the Big Society in action” but was worried that you might not read beyond the headline. Please continue – it is worth it.

One of the things I will miss very much is observing the meetings of our Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). It is an opportunity to learn about what is new and exciting in research and it is that stimulation that I will miss.

The meeting of the SAB is a gathering of some of the best brains in breast cancer research to advise the trustee board on how to allocate the funding so that only the best research is supported.

What isn’t generally recognised is that all of this is done on a voluntary basis – it isn’t part of the day job. I had the opportunity to talk to the Health Minister, Paul Burstow, about it earlier this year and he was surprised to learn the extent of the voluntary work that scientists do. This is not just for Breast Cancer Campaign – any charity that is a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities will have an independent peer review process and reviewers are not paid.

In our case each grant application is reviewed by between two and six experts in the field not only from the UK but also abroad. One review can take anything up to two hours. Members of our Scientific Advisory Board are each allocated several grants to review and spend the same amount of time per grant. They then travel to London for one to two days twice a year and present the grants to the full board who then discuss them. At the end of the meeting the final scores are added up and the decision made.

However excellent the services of the Travelodge where they stay are – it isn’t five-star luxury. A pasta or pizza in a local restaurant is hardly going to land us in trouble with the new bribery laws. So why do they give up all this spare time to do this? A passion for science and a determination to improve the lives of women with breast cancer!

I don’t see this reflected in statistics on volunteering – but that is what it is and we couldn’t do our work without it.

Why a blog?

I started this blog exactly two years ago and this was the title of my first post. One of the motivations was being able to respond directly to misleading information about breast cancer in the media and, in particular, to talk about what Breast Cancer Campaign was doing.

I have realised over the past year that when so much is happening (politically, economically and in the research field) it becomes more difficult to decide what to write about – so one doesn’t write anything.

This is not the only way we can get our messages out - the big change for Campaign over the past two years is the development of our Facebook page and Twitter profile. We are able to get messages out to our supporters and engage with them directly – all 280,000 of them on Facebook and 3,500 on Twitter.

The really big news for me and important news for Campaign is that from 1 July, when I retire from the charity, there will be a new Chief Executive at the helm – Delyth Morgan. I didn’t have anything to do with the very thorough recruitment process but it was a difficult time for colleagues not knowing what the outcome would be.

The news has been welcomed very positively both from colleagues and the wider community. Personally I could not be more delighted – I am very passionate about the work we do and I know that Delyth shares that passion and will take the organisation to new heights. I have known her from when she was CE of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, when we used to meet regularly and see how we could change the breast cancer world, and subsequently when she was appointed Baroness Morgan of Drefelin and was a minister in the Labour government and a patron of Campaign’s. Read more about Delyth.

Whither this blog? It will be unlinked from Campaign’s website but I haven’t quite decided what direction to take. As you will know from earlier blogs, starting in October 2011 I will be heavily involved with the activities of The Worshipful Company of Needlemakers. I thought it might be interesting to fellow Needlemakers to read about it and for those not involved with Livery Companies to find out about some of the activities of the City of London, which do not focus on finance but rather its historic tradition as a place of trade and craft.

Breast Compression!!*

This morning I had my three-yearly mammogram as part of the national breast screening programme (OK this may be too much information but hang in there). We are very good at complaining and campaigning when things don’t work but the moment they are working we take them for granted.

The breast screening programme started in 1988 and I have been every three years apart from when there were issues in my area and it was suspended for some months. I have seen it change from taking only one x-ray each side to taking two x-rays each side from two different angles and today the machines were digital so that the radiographer can check the X-ray immediately to see if the quality was OK. It was quick and efficient and, although this is not the most comfortable procedure, it wasn’t that bad.

Of course it is disappointing that about 20 per cent of screening units do not yet have digital mammography and that needs to be urgently addressed. The age range for screening has been extended to 70 (rising to 73 by 2016) but after that it is down to you to ask for it. That does concern me as it is so easy to forget when the last time was and one’s memory doesn’t improve with age. Remember there are two major risk factors – gender and age. The older you are the greater the risk.

I am now part of three screening programmes – the national breast and bowel cancer programmes and also taking part in a trial for ovarian cancer screening. None of this protects you from those cancers (seriously there are some people who think it does) and none of it replaces being aware of your own body and any unusual changes.

*this is what happens when they take the x-ray – you get the picture.....

Is the career structure for scientific research in universities broken?

Thanks to MRC Policy Watch (Medical Research Council) for drawing a Nature opinion piece to our attention. According to the article the career structure for scientific research in universities is broken. It says the science job market has been tight for decades and this has been compounded by the global recession and accompanying austerity measures. It suggests “professionalising” the postdoctoral role; turning it into a career rather than a scientific stepping stone.

The post-doctoral role is something that seems unique to scientific research in the UK. In any other career structure, once you have left university you are launched onto the job market where if you are successful in finding a job it is, at least theoretically, permanent. If you perform well and your employer is financially successful, you will continue to be employed. If not, your services will be dispensed with in the first instance or you will be made redundant in the second. What happens to you then depends on your abilities and the vagaries of the job market.

Not so in scientific research: once you have your PhD (and another story in finding funding for that) you try and find a team or department that has funding to give you your first post. This may well be with what is called soft funding – ie from a charity such as ours. That will last for three years, and during your third year you have to think about applying for the next round of funding. After a few of these, if you are successful you will be leading your own team and employed by the university and thus have tenure where your job is secure. I am not sure that the concept of tenure exists anywhere else.

This process also discriminates against women who have families. If you take a career break to have a family and then get back on the post-doc soft money road show, review boards may turn you down as you will be older than your contemporaries and they may question why you are not leading your own team by now. I am happy to say that in observing our own Scientific Advisory Board that is not the case, but it does happen.

Our scientific fellowship awards are designed to help the talented investigator make that transition from post-doc award to tenure and we hope that by the time they finish their five year fellowship they are in a position to negotiate tenure. But we can only fund one or two of these a year.

In other European countries the situation is somewhat different and there are defined career structures, but they do not have the level of charity funded research that is found in the UK. We know that the UK punches well above its weight in the global academic research community but at what cost?

I wonder how many talented researchers fall by the wayside because of this system. I think that the author of the piece, Jennifer Rohn, makes a case very eloquently but don’t expect the system to change any time soon.