Tickled Pink products on sale
in stores from the
6th September

Asda launched the Tickled Pink campaign back in 1996 to raise money to help improve the lives of people with breast cancer, both now and in the future. Entering its 14th year, Asda's Tickled Pink campaign benefits two breast cancer charities - Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Campaign and since it started, our work has raised over £21 million.


Dr Evans

Professor Gareth Evans

(St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester)

Currently only women over 50 are eligible for regular NHS breast screening (mammography). Younger women with a family history of breast cancer are often referred by their GPs. However this monitoring could soon be stopped.

Professor Gareth Evans is studying whether breast screening benefits younger women, aged 35 – 39, who are at high risk of breast cancer. In the UK each year around 1,400 women in this age group are diagnosed with breast cancer.

Professor Evans will review screening information previously carried out on high risk women and recruit a further 2,800 women over the next three years to study the benefits of mammography for women aged 35 – 39.

The eagerly awaited results are of national importance as they will help to inform the NHS breast screening programme.

Posted in:  

Breast Cancer Campaign - North West

Dr Farnie

Dr Gillian Farnie, Scientific Fellowship

(University of Manchester)

On diagnosis, a breast cancer patient may be offered several forms of treatment including chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, approximately 30 per cent of people will develop resistance to these treatments and will see their breast cancer return.

Dr Farnie will investigate why this resistance occurs and look at ways to prevent it from happening. In the UK, the current figures show that each year around 12,000 women and 90 men die from breast cancer, mostly due to cancer recurring and spreading to other parts of the body. It is vital that we understand why this resistance occurs so ways to overcome it can be discovered.

Posted in:  

Breast Cancer Campaign - North West

Dr Clarke

Dr Rob Clarke, Scientific Fellowship

(University of Manchester)

This fellowship will provide more insight as to why breast cancer recurs after treatment and will lead to the development of more effective ways to treat breast cancer.

The human breast contains several different types of cell each performing a specific function, all of which are thought to have originated from a single type of breast cell known as a stem cell. Breast stem cells are unique as they are present throughout life and continue to divide to produce all the other types of breast cells required over a lifetime.

Scientists believe that breast cancer can originate from breast stem cells called cancer-initiating stem cells (CSC). Current breast cancer treatments kill the cells in a breast tumour but often fail to kill the CSCs, which continue to divide and result in a new breast tumour forming. This avoidance of breast cancer treatments by CSCs may explain why approximately a third of people with breast cancer see their cancer return.

Dr Clarke will study CSCs and determine how they manage to survive breast cancer treatment. This research will pave the way for the design of new breast cancer therapies created specifically to kill CSCs and prevent breast cancer reoccurrence.

Posted in:  

Breast Cancer Campaign - North West