Help Emily to fund research into spinal cord tumours

We received some very sad news earlier this week concerning one of our students, Emily Parsons. Emily is a final year Business Psychology student who took leave of absence at the start of this academic year to undergo surgery for a spinal cord tumour. Unfortunately however, the prognosis of her tumour is terminal.

Emily is one of our brightest students achieving >70% in both her first and second year and we are pleased that we have been able to reward her achievements and all her hard work with an Aegrotat Degree, which the Vice Chancellor approved on behalf of Senate yesterday.

The type of tumour Emily has is highly rare and incurable, affecting fewer than 100 people in the UK every year, all of whom are between the ages of 3 to 25 years of age. Emily is now devoting much time and energy to raising money to fund research into malignant and incurable spinal cord tumours and specifically for a research project at the Cancer Research UK’s Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence at Addenbrookes Hospital.

In the first four days of the campaign Emily raised £26,000, currently she has raised £34,000, and she has just increased her target to £50,000. We have informed Emily and her family that we are keen to support her in her fundraising and try to help her to reach this target by sharing the link to her JustGiving page with all staff in the School.

If you feel able to make a donation to this very worthwhile cause, we know that Emily and her family will be extremely grateful. In addition, please feel free to promote her campaign to other colleagues across the wider University, as you see fit.

Many thanks all

Mark P. Lewis
Professor of Musculoskeletal Biology & Dean of School
School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences