Yorkshire Cancer Research celebrates pioneering female cancer researchers on International Women's Day

To mark International Women’s Day, Yorkshire Cancer Research is celebrating the remarkable achievements of five female cancer researchers throughout its 100-year history. Thanks to them, the charity has brought a century of ground-breaking discoveries and life-saving progress to people in the region, and beyond. Together, these women have united in one goal: a Yorkshire free from cancer.

Cancer research was a man’s world when Georgiana Bonser rose to become one of the most respected scientists of her time. Born in Manchester, she was the first female surgeon to work at Manchester Royal Infirmary. In 1927, she joined the new cancer research team in Leeds, becoming Yorkshire Cancer Research’s first female researcher.  

Georgiana took the lead on bladder cancer research, after years of increasing concern that one of the most used cloth dyes, aniline, could be causing bladder cancer for thousands of dye workers in Leeds. She proved this theory in 1941, leading to the ban of aniline in the UK and helping to reduce the incidence of bladder cancer in Yorkshire and across the country.

Georgiana went on to be a leading advisor to the government on the safety of food dyes. Admired for her “keen and dogged persistence”, she fought her entire life for women to get their rightful opportunities in the medical world, helping young female researchers with their studies and employment. One of her proudest moments came in 1959 when she was voted President of the Women’s Medical Federation.

In her obituary, Georgiana Bonser was hailed as a pioneering female scientist, a “determined and formidable woman” ahead of her time. 

In 1995, scientists from around the world gathered to celebrate the opening of a new  £1 million laboratory at the University of York, developed to provide a facility worthy of the world-class research led by Professor Jo Milner.

Jo arrived in York in 1991 to take up the post of Director of the Yorkshire Cancer Research Unit. Her team studied ‘P53’, a protein which was initially understood to kill damaged cells and prevent them becoming cancerous. In 1999, they were the first to discover another crucial role of P53 - its ability to quickly repair genetic damage - a breakthrough in the scientific world.

Another global breakthrough was in 2002, when Jo and her team successfully used a technique in laboratory tests called RNA interference to “totally eliminate” cervical cancer cells whilst leaving healthy cells undamaged.

Professor Helen Bryant joined the Yorkshire Cancer Research Institute at the University of Sheffield in 2002 to study DNA. She provided vital evidence that some types of cancer cells, including those affected by the faulty BRCA gene, could be killed by inhibiting the protein ‘PARP’. This was a radically different form of cancer treatment as it would leave normal cells unharmed, reducing the side effects often seen with chemotherapy.

In 2014, Lynparza became the first ‘PARP’ inhibitor drug to be approved for use and has gone on to treat over 140,000 people, extending thousands of lives around the world. But Helen would see the impact of her pioneering lab work much closer to home, when over 20 years later, she spotted a pack of Lynparza on the kitchen worktop of her friend who was being treated for breast cancer.

“There’s something incredible about conducting an experiment, looking at the results and realising what they might mean,” Helen explained. “It was mind-blowing to see my friend benefitting from the same cancer research breakthrough we’d made in the lab 20 years ago.” 

After qualifying as a nurse at St James’s Hospital in Leeds, Suzanne Rogerson’s passion for cancer research started after becoming fascinated by the medication used on clinical trials to treat people with leukaemia. Starting her research career in 2002, she spent the next 16 years working on drug, medical device and gene therapy clinical trials at Leeds Teaching Hospitals.

In 2022, Suzanne became Lead Nurse for the Leeds Lung Health Check, a pioneering lung screening trial funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research. Using CT scans on a mobile unit, Suzanne and her team travelled to communities across Leeds, screening over 8,800 people and detecting 400 lung cancers, most of which were found at an early stage and successfully treated.  

The trial provided crucial data and evidence to help inform the national lung screening programme, set to be fully rolled out across the country by 2030. 600,000 people in Yorkshire could be offered a life-saving lung health check over the next five years, and Suzanne will hopefully continue to play a vital role in leading this programme.

“Research is fundamental to improving cancer outcomes,” Suzanne Rogerson explained. “Evidence from the Leeds Lung Health Check will help save thousands of lives.”

Professor Jenny Seligmann first joined forces with Yorkshire Cancer Research in 2019, when the charity awarded her a five-year fellowship to pursue bowel cancer research at the University of Leeds. Securing a place on a highly competitive programme was a huge achievement, even more so having just given birth to her second child. 

“Jenny was an outstanding candidate and a bundle of energy,” explained Dr Kathryn Scott, Chief Executive at Yorkshire Cancer Research. “You could just tell she was going to be a star.”

Jenny became part of the team behind the international FOxTROT 1 trial, a study that provided chemotherapy to people with bowel cancer before surgery.  

Seeking to build on these findings, Jenny has gone on to lead further studies. Following £3.4 million in funding from Yorkshire Cancer Research, FOxTROT now involves a programme of world-leading bowel cancer clinical trials exploring the best types of chemotherapy and other drug treatments to give before surgery.

The FOxTROT team are already seeing the life-saving benefits of these trials for people with bowel cancer, not only in Yorkshire, but across the UK and in countries around the world.