Cancer research tribute to young woman's legacy

Miranda Filmer died aged 30 of neuroendocrine cancer. In 2022, Miranda’s family set up a fund for research into neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) and have been actively fundraising since.

So far, the Miranda Filmer Fund has raised almost £500,000, supporting a groundbreaking research study exploring why some cancer cells within a patient are more aggressive, why they change their structure, and how they respond to treatment. The aim is to increase understanding of which treatments work better on which patients.

The neuroendocrine cancer study is led by the Royal Free London’s Professor Martyn Caplin, a global expert on NETs and Professor Krista Rombouts, an internationally-renowned scientist and interim head of department at UCL’s Institute for Liver and Digestive Health.

As the Filmer family marks the second anniversary of Miranda’s death in June, Prof Caplin has announced that a new spatial biology research hub is to be established in her name.

Situated in the UCL Institute of Liver and Digestive Diseases on the UCL Royal Free Hospital campus, the spatial biology hub will allow researchers to learn in more detail than ever before how cancer cells behave and interact with other cells.

The Miranda Filmer Fund is funding two crucial roles for the laboratory – a PhD researcher and a laboratory technician – while a grant from the Medical Research Council (UKRI) has secured the purchase of two cutting-edge platforms: a digital spatial profiler and a spatial molecular imager.

Prof Rombouts said: ​“These technologies provide unparalleled opportunities to create detailed 3D maps of molecules within tissue samples.

“We will, for the first time, be able to map genes or proteins in their native location in the tissue and investigate how they interact with different cell types.

“This will help us understand more about the behaviour of the genes responsible for the development of neuroendocrine cancer and to decipher in great detail how tumours react to different medication, helping clinicians to personalise treatment and therapy plans for their patients.”

Prof Caplin said: ​“Miranda had a very aggressive form of neuroendocrine cancer, which is a rare cancer. This spatial laboratory will enable assessing cancers with cutting edge technology in much more molecular detail and in 3D.

“Miranda was a courageous and determined lady who lived life to the full, including competing in horse trials, until the very end of her too-short life. This will be a wonderful tribute to her, always looking to the now and the future. This laboratory will help not only neuroendocrine cancer patients but also patients with more common cancers.”