Daisy Appeal tour for Humber Business Week winner
Daisy Appeal trustee Viccy Heuck with Dave Garness outside the new MIRC.
A KEY figure in the regional business community praised the innovation and creativity of the Daisy Appeal when he visited the site at Castle Hill Hospital for a tour of the facilities and to collect his prize from one of the big events at Humber Business Week.
Dave Garness, Group Managing Director of Garness Jones, won six bottles of champagne in the business card draw held by the Daisy Appeal at The Business Day event which brought down the curtain on Humber Business Week 2022.
The prize also included an invitation to visit the £8.8m Molecular Imaging Research Centre (MIRC) which is currently being fitted out at Castle Hill Hospital and will transform detection techniques for serious medical conditions including cancer, heart disease and dementia.
The Daisy Appeal was selected as an associate charity for The Business Day to send representatives to the event at Bridlington Spa to raise awareness of the fundraising campaign and the capabilities of the new centre.
Members of the Daisy Appeal team took the opportunity to network with business leaders as part of a wider drive to develop corporate relationships and community support.
David and Viccy Heuck, two of the Daisy Appeal’s trustees, donated the champagne and Viccy made the presentation to Dave Garness when he visited the MIRC.
Dave revealed he visited the site a few years ago for a tour by Daisy Appeal chair Professor Nick Stafford and again more recently with Professor Steve Archibald, Professor in Molecular Imaging at the University of Hull.
Dave said: “Both visits were inspirational and I think the innovation and creativity at the heart of the Daisy Appeal reflects the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit of our region.
“I hope the Daisy Appeal’s attendance at The Business Day will help to raise awareness among the wider public and business community to spread the message about how very fortunate we all are to have this facility on our doorstep.
“The development is also good news for the economy in terms of job creation, supply chain opportunities and the potential to sell the technology worldwide to support the development of this specialist medical care.”
Since its foundation in 2002 the Daisy Appeal has raised more than £22m. The Daisy Appeal Medical Research Centre opened on the Castle Hill Hospital site in 2008 and was followed, in 2014, by the opening of the Jack Brignall PET-CT Scanning Centre, housing the first in a new type of Siemens scanner in the country.
Once up and running the new MIRC will initially be able to produce Fluorine 18 radiotracers, which are currently used in most scans but which are made elsewhere in large scale production units. During the next two or three years the centre will also be able to produce Carbon 11 radiotracers, which have great potential for neurological and cardiological use and will open up other opportunities.
The new building creates the opportunity for the isotopes to be piped directly from the cyclotron to hot cells in the room next door, where the product will be processed, checked and then delivered through a hatch in the wall direct to the Jack Brignall Centre for injection into patients, enabling quicker diagnosis, better treatment and improved quality of life for thousands of people every year.
The project has led to the University of Hull becoming a member of the elite UK PET Network, joining Imperial College London, King’s College London and the Universities of Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Oxford. He added that work is also attracting interest from organisations including the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK.
To find out more about the Daisy Appeal please visit https://daisyappeal.org/
