Objective of the Fund
 The objective of the Fund is the promotion of clinical and
laboratory research into the treatment and possible cure of
leukaemia and
allied diseases.
A popular aim of the BFLF is to support the Leukaemia/Myeloma Unit at the Royal Marsden Hospital.
We specifically aim to support
research into a particular aspect of cause, diagnosis or treatment
of leukaemia and assisting with the dissemination of knowledge into
the causes, diagnosis and treatment of leukaemia.
The Fund also aims to provide support for patients and to improve
the environment for patients with these diseases.
All applications are considered at the discretion of the Executive
Committee on their merits.
Grants are not normally made to other charities or major fund
raising appeals or to individuals.
Research aims
Although treatment is now more successful for leukaemia, with significant numbers of patients being cured, there are still a substantial number of patients that relapse. The Bud Flanagan Leukaemia Fund aims to develop and introduce new treatments for these diseases. It is only by doing this that we will be able to improve patient outcomes and cure.
Projects funded
Within the criteria defined by the Executive Committee for making
grants, the following projects have been recently funded:
The Royal Marsden Hospital: Bone Marrow Transplant Unit
 The Fund recognises the importance of providing support for patients
during their treatment. The treatments are often prolonged and require long periods of in patient stay. It was for these reasons
that the Fund contributed over a million pounds to the refurbishment
of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, paying particular attention to
the environment and surroundings for patients undergoing these
treatments.
The specialised environment reduces the risk of infections, but also
improves the quality of life for these patients while they are on
treatment.
Sharon West, Consultant Nurse Specialist, says:
“The Bud Flanagan Unit enables patients to be nursed in single rooms
which offers patients more privacy with all the rooms having ensuite
facilities. The rooms also have fridges and televisions with DVD
players and computers with internet access and webcams allowing
contact with friends and family. There are 2 negative pressure rooms
where we can treat patients with respiratory and other infections.
Infection control procedures have been reviewed and this means that
patients are allowed to have more than one visitor at a time;
previously they could only have one named visitor in the room at any
one time, and other visitors had to talk to patients through a
plastic window. Nurses and visitors no longer had to gown up with
protective clothing and we now only wear aprons. We can do more
transplants as we have more single rooms and there is the facility
for relatives to stay but only when the patient is acutely unwell”.
The Royal Marsden
Hospital: New Drugs
The Fund
has directly provided support for the Drug Development Programme in
the Haematology Unit at The Royal Marsden Hospital. In particular,
money from the Fund has been used to develop a team who can evaluate
new drugs, ‘small molecules’, which often lack the severe toxicity
of prior chemotherapeutic regimens. The Fund considers this to be
an important area to support as it gives hope to people with
otherwise incurable disease. It provides an effective way of
improving the care of these patients, and it is in this fashion that
new treatments for patients can be developed that lack the toxicity
of other approaches.
The Royal Marsden
Hospital: Database Development
 The Fund has
supported the establishment of an evaluation of the value of current
treatments for cases treated in the Haematology Unit. This has been
done in conjunction with the Fergus McClay Database and the
Jenny Bidwell Database. The data that has been collected
includes the nature and type of disease, the treatment given, and
the outcomes achieved. This is a very simple, but highly effective
way of making improvements in treatment. By analysing this data we
can understand which patients responded best to which treatments and
this information provides a data driven way of selecting the best
treatment for any individual patient. This, combined with
recruitment into clinical trials, means that we should rapidly make
progress in the delivery of effective treatments, and improvement in
cure rates.
The Royal Marsden
and Institute of Cancer Research:
Cancer Fingerprinting and Personalised Medicine
 Everybody’s cancer
is different and as we develop new treatments, it is important to
select treatments that work for an individual patient and have the
fewest side effects. The Fund believes that this is the best way to
improve survival and outcomes for patients in the short term.
Consequently, the Fund has invested in developing fingerprinting
technologies based on ‘gene-chips’, able to characterise individual
cancers. Complex computer programmes can be used to analyse the
data for these ‘Chips’ giving a characteristic signature for the
cancer. This signature is then matched to the treatments available
for the treatment of that cancer subtype.
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Executive Committee |
Chairman: Tony Robinson
 I
was born in London. At the time I was a sales and later on
I had my own business. During this time I attended the
Boxing Shows at the Grosvenor Hotel, Park Lane, and I met
Bud Flanagan, Jack Solomons a boxing promoter and Alex
Alexander, who invited me to join the Committee of the Bud
Flanagan Leukaemia Fund and I have served the Fund for over
40 years, raising funds for research into Leukaemia to help
fight this terrible disease.
I am now retired and I devote much of my time planning
events for the Charity.
|
Vice President:
Kaplan Kaye
After originally training as an actor,
 Kaplan
soon found himself appearing in major television, film and
West end theatre productions such as “Oliver”, “Blitz”
and “Bye Bye Birdie“, as well as playing the coveted
role of ‘Puck’ at Covent Garden in Benjamin Britten’s
opera “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Kaplan also
appeared as ‘Henry’ in the original BBC television
series “Just William”. Whilst appearing at Covent
Garden and playing ‘Billy’ the grandson in the radio
series “Mrs Dales Diary”, Kaplan wrote and recorded
‘Do You Believe in Magic’, his first single that got
into the lower end of the pop music charts. By now Kaplan
had decided that the thing he most wanted to do was enter
the music business, this he did by getting a job working for
Dick James music, publishers of the Beatles and Elton John.
Kaplan worked at Dick James music for eight years starting
as a Dub-Cutter in DJM studio’s before soon becoming an in
house sound engineer and then A&R Manager at DJM records.
During this time Kaplan worked with many established acts
including Elton John, Paul McCartney and Joe Cocker. After
leaving DJM, Kaplan concentrated on record production, music
publishing, writing and management with his management and
agency company KAL Management and was responsible for
launching the successful career of ‘Judie Tzuke’ with
the release of the major world hit, “Stay With Me Till
Dawn” Kaplan also promoted all Judie Tzuke tours.
Kaplan had a hit as a performer with ‘Chalk Dust’ by
‘The Brat’ a send up of tennis star John McEnroe and
as a producer with ‘Listen to the Buddha’ by reggae
group ‘OZO’. As a writer Kaplan has had his songs recorded
by Lulu, Geno Washington, Lance Ellington, the Australian
singing star Karan Knowles and recently Wycleff Jean, ll
Cool J, and 50 Cent. In 1994 Kaplan won the ‘British Academy
of Song writers Composers and Authors (BASCA) award for ‘Best
British Song’ at the Cavan International Song Festival
with his song ‘You Will Find Me There’ which he also
performed.
Kaplan has been the Business Manager for Geno Washington
for over 30 years involved in the recording, publishing and
the promoting of Geno’s live concerts. Kaplan also produces
show’s and still performs himself. Over the past few years
Kaplan has been asked personally by HRH the Duke of
Edinburgh to produce five Royal Gala shows at the Theatre Royal Windsor for
the Prince Philip Trust Fund in the presence of HRH
the Duke of Edinburgh. As a very keen golfer Kaplan was
proposed in the early 80’s by the late past Captain Johnnie
Riscoe to be a member of the prestigious Vaudeville
Golfing Society and was extremely proud when elected
Captain of the Society in 2006 and is now the Secretary of
the Society. Kaplan is also a very proud member of the show
business charity
organisation
The Grand Order of Water Rats
and honoured by being the only person ever to have been
elected to the position of King Rat on three
consecutive occasions 2006-2007-2008 |
Medical
Advisor:
Professor Gareth Morgan, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath
Professor Gareth Morgan joined The Royal Marsden NHS
Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research as
Head of the Haemato-Oncology Clinical Unit and Section of
Haemato-Oncology in 2003.
After attending medical school at the University Hospital of
Wales, he joined the Institute as a PhD student, where he
trained in the molecular genetics and management of blood
cell cancers. He left the Institute to join the University
of Leeds where he set up his own research group studying the
molecular genetics of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myeloma as
well as treating patients with blood cell cancers.
He
is a respected clinician and researcher who has published
extensively on the use of High Dose Chemotherapy for the
treatment of lymphoma and myeloma. |
Committee Member:
Dr Faith Davies,
MRCP, MRCPath
Faith is a Consultant Haematologist at the Royal Marsden
Hospital, London and a member of the Career Development
Faculty at the Institute of Cancer Research, London. Having
qualified as a doctor at the University of Wales, College of
Medicine, she completed her general medical training in
Cardiff and Birmingham, and her Haematology specialist
training in Leeds and London. During this time she also
undertook research in to the biology and treatment of
multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer, concentrating on a
number of potential new drugs (including Thalidomide,
Velcade and Revlimid) and new genetic techniques at the
University of Leeds and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute,
Boston, USA. She currently combines clinical work on blood
cancers with laboratory-based research, and specialises in
investigating new drugs for myeloma and leukaemia treatment
both in the laboratory and the clinic. |
|
Honorary Treasurer: Joe Goodman
 When
Joe was a mere lad he was introduced to Variety Shows and
Pantomime, and with this encouragement so the seed was sown
for future achievements. Winning those early Talent Shows
such as The Sunday Newspaper Star Trail, Butlins £1000
Talent Show and Opportunity Knocks. Success continued over
the years for Joe to receive such prestigious awards as Club
Entertainer & Southern Entertainer of the year. His
appearance on "The New comedians" enhanced his career to the
versatile comedy entertainer he is today.
Joe
is a happy family man who finds time to pursue his hobbies,
the love of golf and his inventions, designing "Clive the
Cone" and many more of his own "props. |
The Bud Flanagan Leukaemia Fund
 General Secretary: Julie Rudland-Wood
10 Royal Sovereign View,
Eastbourne,
East Sussex,
BN23 6EQ.
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The Executive Committee
Chairman Tony Robinson Vice Chairman Kaplan Kaye
Chairman Boxing Committee Tony Robinson
Committee Members Professor Ray Powles, CBE, MD, BSC, FRCP,
FRCPath
Dr Faith Davies, MRCP MRCPath. Prof.Gareth Morgan PHD FRCP FRCPath.
Julie Rudland-Wood
General Secretary Julie Rudland-Wood. Honorary
Treasurer
Joe Goodman.
Medical Advisor Professor Gareth Morgan, PHD, FRCP, FRCPath
Registered Charity No 1092540
A company limited by guarantee No. 4355397
Administration:
by the Executive Committee & The General Secretary
The minimal overheads are covered by investment income, such that 100% of funds
raised
are applied to the objects of the Fund
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