First Give is a charity that works with partner schools to inspire young people to make a positive change in society. Students at the partner school learn about social issues in their communities and choose the issues which are important to them. The Year 9 team at St Birinus School chose to support Ludwig Oxford and have been working hard to raise awareness and deliver social action activities such as hosting bake sales.
As the boys were most eager to support the local research done by Ludwig Oxford, clinician researcher Dr Richard Owen went out to the school to visit the class and give a little more detail about a recent clinical trial LUD 2015-005 sponsored by the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and CRUK Accelerator Awards and carried out by collaborating groups at the University of Oxford.
Richard was directly involved in analysing samples from the trial to better understand the key molecular changes that might identify which future patients will and will not benefit from new, potentially curative treatments. His visit included a brief discussion about how the results of the trial hope to benefit patients with oesophageal cancer, and how his job as both a surgeon and a researcher means he sees both sides of medical research. The students particularly enjoyed the images of the inside of an oesophagus and getting a chance to ask questions about working in an operating theatre!
The Year 9 students at St Birinus won the School Final and as such won a First Give grant of £1000 for their chosen charity. Ludwig Oxford, part of the University of Oxford charity are incredibly grateful for this support, in particular from a local school! The team plan to use the funds on some histology staining for a continuation of the clinical trial analyses.
Congratulations and thank you to St Birinus’ Year 9 class for their effort and achievement!