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A grandmother living with a brain tumour says taking part in a pioneering trial changing how researchers prevent, detect and treat cancer has restored “hope and happiness”.
Amanda Grayling, 63, a former finance director from Blythburgh, Suffolk, features in a new TV documentary exploring the science behind the next big cancer breakthroughs.
The grandmother was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2023, but rather than receiving chemotherapy, her tumour’s DNA was analysed and matched with a targeted drug.
The documentary reveals that five months into treatment, her scans show no growth and some signs of shrinkage.
“It’s nice to be normal, ” she said. “We go out every day. I try and look forward rather than look back. It’s the best thing.”
Her husband Gary said: “We go on holiday now, we live our lives as if nothing is wrong.
Speaking to his wife, he said: “We had tears when you first got diagnosed, will I see this Christmas? and this is the third Christmas now and there’s no problems.”
Dr Richard Mair features in the first episode of the three-part documentary Credit: Cancer Detectives: Finding the Cures- Channel 4/Dragonfly North
Mrs Grayling’s treatment is being overseen by Dr Richard Mair, a neurosurgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a University of Cambridge scientist.
His clinical trial features in the first episode of the Channel 4 series, Cancer Detectives: Finding the Cures.
In the programme, he describes how science is “at the dawn of a new series of cancer treatments” and there is “the opportunity to change medicine forever”.
“To match their cancer type, we need to do a new type of investigation called whole genome sequencing,” he told ITV News Anglia.
“What whole genome sequencing does is it looks at the DNA, looks at the genes in the cells of the cancer and identifies what’s gone wrong for that patient.
“Then we’re able to match the drugs specifically to the changes in that person’s genes in the DNA of that patient’s cancer.”
Amanda Grayling is one of the patients starring in the Channel 4 documentary Credit: Cancer Detectives Finding the Cures- Channel 4/Dragonfly North
“We have more drugs now than we’ve ever had, and it’s really down to us to find the right patients to match with all of those drugs that we have at our disposal.
“Moreover, there are new treatment modalities coming online all the time. Whether we talk about cancer vaccines, immunotherapies, oncolytic viruses, gene therapies, there are lots of different approaches to cancer and to treating it that we didn’t have 10, 15 years ago.”
Cancer Research UK, which partly funded the trial, has described it as a “golden age of cancer research”.
Phil Almond from Cancer Research UK said: “This series offers a powerful glimpse into the future of cancer research – a future where more people live longer, better lives through earlier diagnosis and kinder, more effective treatments.”
“It shows how breakthroughs are already changing lives and highlights the people behind them. “
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