Project restart in sight, but reagent supply an issue
We closed our work down in an orderly fashion and it is easy enough to restart the project in the same way as we would do after a holiday. There was no loss of reagents, samples or data before we paused our activities.
We have a clear plan for restarting the work as soon as we are allowed to re-enter the laboratories. We expect to be able to continue our project from July 1st. There may be some slight delays depending on availability of core facilities that we rely on for certain parts of the project and we will work at reduced capacity for the initial few weeks, gradually building up towards pre-COVID-19 levels.
At this point we are optimistic that we will be able to catch up but this does of course rely on factors outside our control (like further lock downs and delays in delivery of reagents from abroad).
In the longer term we expect to be significantly affected due to the loss of charity funding for cancer research overall. Most charities have paused their funding rounds and face a highly significant drop in the funding they will be able to provide. We also worry about a shift in funding allocation away from understanding cancer biology to COVID-19 related research.
“Your support is more important than ever, as we know that the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in many women not being diagnosed with breast cancer at the earliest possible opportunity. This means that many will discover their breast cancer at a point when it is more difficult to treat or has spread to become incurable. Therefore, the problem we are trying to solve, how to prevent breast cancer from spreading, is as important as before – if not more so!
We are ready to restart our research and need your help to do this through your support for Against Breast Cancer. As always we are incredibly grateful for the amazing efforts of all the fundraisers and supporters that make it possible for us to carry out world leading research for the benefit of breast cancer patients.”
Professor Ingunn Holen