Birmingham anti-cancer project boosted by SPARK The Midlands

A cross-BHP team from the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (ROH) and Aston University has won a place on the SPARK The Midlands programme to help further the development of its minimally-invasive, anti-cancer and bone regenerative injectable paste, which uses the cancer-killing properties of gallium.

SPARK The Midlands provides specialist technical and academic support to advance healthcare research discoveries in the region from the bench to bedside.

The team will use the SPARK programme to secure a clear pathway for the cancer-killing paste to be adopted in clinics and hospitals. If proved effective through clinical trials, the paste – a gallium-doped bioglass – could be used to treat patients with primary and metastatic bone cancer.  

Dr Lucas Souza, Research Laboratory Manager at the ROH, said: “Where the global success rate for new ideas making it to clinical trials is less than 5%, SPARK has recorded a project success rate of 62%. Thanks to this programme, the ROH will have the support to develop a regional pipeline for the translation of ideas for orthopaedic and bone cancer applications to NHS-approved medical use.”

World class cancer care needs world class cancer research, so support programmes like SPARK are essential in steering NHS-led research through clinical trials and into patient care. 

SPARK is a collaboration between Aston University, the West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator (WMHTIA) and Forging Ahead. The programme originated at Stanford University in California and has proved hugely impactful in improving the success of innovations making their way to clinical trials and then clinical practice.

🔗 Learn more about SPARK

📸 ROH’s Mr Jonathan Stevenson, Orthopaedic Oncology and Arthroplasty Consultant, is pictured above with Dr Lucas Souza, Research Laboratory Manager