JLS visit Cancer Science researchers

University researchers Dr Pam Kearns and Dr Andrew Peet recently welcomed award winning boy band JLS to Birmingham, shortly after the band re-launched the JLS Foundation in support of Cancer Research UK.

For the next two years the JLS Foundation will raise money for the charity’s life-saving research into cancers affecting children, teenagers and young adults. Together, they hope to bring forward the day when all children and young people are cured of cancer.

To learn more about children’s cancers and the progress that is being made in the fight against the disease, JLS met Pam and Andrew at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, hearing about their research and spending time with children on the oncology wards.

Band member, Marvin Humes, said: “We met some amazingly brave young people today and it’s been fantastic to see what incredible work is going on behind the scenes right now at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and across the country. It’s been an inspiring day and has given us more motivation than ever to support Cancer Research UK’s work to develop new and better treatments.”

Dr Pam Kearns, who heads the national Children’s Cancer Trials Team at the University of Birmingham and works at Birmingham Children’s Hospital as an oncology consultant, said: “The children were completely star-struck. It was great to see their faces. Survival rates for children’s cancer have more than doubled since the 1960s which is great news. But we can’t stop there. Cancer Research UK is working towards a future where all children with cancer are cured so we’re enormously grateful to JLS for helping us raise awareness and funds for research. Despite incredible improvements in treatment, around 250 children still lose their lives to the disease each year in the UK. So we hope people in the West Midlands and across the country will support the JLS Foundation and help to create even more tomorrows for children with cancer.”

For more information on the JLS Foundation, please visit http://www.jlsfoundation.co.uk/.