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Every day 740 people in the UK learn that they have cancer – that’s 270,000 cases a year. More than a third of the UK’s population will develop cancer at some stage in their lives. Few of us go through life without coming into contact with this disease in some way.
Biosamples – tissue and blood samples – from cancer patients can play a vital part in research that seeks to find new means of preventing, diagnosing or treating cancer. Yet most researchers tell us that they are short of the samples they need.
The organ retention scandals highlighted the chasms between the public, healthcare workers and researchers in their attitude to human biosamples. Patients want to contribute, but they need to be confident that samples will be collected and stored ethically, and that their donation will be used for the good of research.
onCore UK exists to improve the opportunities for people with cancer to help cancer research by donating biosamples. In turn, this will increase the availability of biosamples for researchers who need these for their work.
onCore UK was established in 2005 as the National Cancer Tissue Resource. We were later renamed onCore UK to reflect movement on towards the charity's core aim: to assist research into Cancer by developing an oncology tissue and information resource in the UK through cooperative and collaborative efforts.
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