Today (24 November 2015), ScottishPower - as part of its charity partnership with Cancer Research UK - announced it has donated more than half a million pounds towards life-saving research at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre. The vital funds, donated over the past three years as part of a wider partnership which has raised over £8 million for the charity, have helped upgrade the centre’s research equipment and provide support to PhD students.
More than £150,000 of the funding helped purchase a new mass spectrometer machine for the centre in Scotland’s capital. This sensitive piece of equipment can measure the amounts of a wide variety of different molecules in samples - including blood, urine and tumours. Scientists are looking for molecules, or patterns of molecules, that could give doctors important clues as to what treatments are likely to benefit a patient the most. The machine could give doctors the ability to track a patient over time to understand how their cancer is responding, as well as helping researchers spot potential new therapeutic approaches.

The rest of the machine’s cost was match-funded via a grant by the Medical Research Council and £400,000 raised by ScottishPower has helped fund three scientists undertaking PhDs in cancer related treatment research while supporting one scientist researching treatments for lung cancer.
ScottishPower Head of Customer Communications, Julie Keough, attended the unveiling of the new machine at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre.
She said: “As a company, ScottishPower’s commitment to making a difference stretches beyond energy. Our ongoing partnership with Cancer Research UK is a reflection of this and we have been working hard to raise vital funds over the past three years to help beat cancer sooner.
“The work being undertaken at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre is incredible and we are thrilled that we can support it with our donations. It’s been hugely encouraging to see how this funding has helped the centre and to meet with the PhD students, who are central to the continued progress of life-saving cancer research.”
ScottishPower launched its charity partnership with Cancer Research UK in 2012 with the aim of raising £5 million over three years. To date it has raised over £8 million for the charity which has been generated through a raft of different initiatives including sales of a bespoke ‘Help Beat Cancer’ energy tariff, sponsorship of events including Race for Life, Stand Up To Cancer and Shine, as well as employee and customer fundraising.
Professor Margaret Frame, Director at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre said: “The funding support of blue-chip companies like ScottishPower is critical in supporting us with our continued research and work. We are therefore hugely grateful for its generous donations over the past three years, which is allowing us to advance both our equipment and science.
“We were desperately needing another mass spectrometer at the centre and while we knew we could apply for a grant from the Medical Research Council, we knew it wouldn’t cover the total cost. We have over five hundred researchers at the centre, which means the demand for using our machinery is huge. This new, highly-efficient device will therefore make a big difference to helping us make advances in research so that more women, men and children in Scotland can survive cancer.”
Every hour, around three people in Scotland receive the news they have cancer* and the number of people being diagnosed with the disease has now reached around 30,200 cases each year. ** Cancer Research UK spends around £31 million a year in Scotland on some of the UK’s leading scientific and clinical research. Scientists at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh PhD are involved in cutting edge research on new treatments designed to stop cancer spreading while Glasgow is home to the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, a thriving community of world class scientists and doctors..
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Notes to Editors
*Approximation based on annual figure of around 30,200 cases diagnosed in Scotland in 2011.
**All cancer (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) diagnosed in Scotland in 2011.
About ScottishPower
- ScottishPower is part of the Iberdrola Group, one of the largest energy companies in Europe, and the world leader in operating wind energy. Iberdrola’s main operating areas are Spain, the UK, US, Mexico and Brazil
- In the UK, as well as being a major retail energy supplier, ScottishPower manages the electricity network which supports millions of homes and businesses and is one of the largest producers of renewable electricity
- The company now manages more than 5.6 million retail customer accounts
- SP Energy Networks look after more than 100,000 km of power lines and over 30,000 substations, delivering electricity to more than 3.5 million homes and businesses in Scotland, the North West of England and North Wales. ScottishPower Renewables is one of the leading developers of green electricity, with more than 25 operational windfarms and a healthy pipeline of onshore, offshore, wave and tidal renewable energy projects in development
About Cancer Research UK
- Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research
- Cancer Research UK’s pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives
- Cancer Research UK receives no government funding for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on every pound donated
- Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last forty years
- Today, 2 in 4 people survive cancer. Cancer Research UK’s ambition is to accelerate progress so that 3 in 4 people will survive cancer within the next 20 years
- Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses
- Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured