Breast cancer research receives a R 5.28 million endowment
The endowment, funded by the Philip Sceales and Janet Antrobus Cancer Research Trust, will support a wide range of breast cancer research at Wits.
Breast cancer is, at 23.2%, the most diagnosed of all cancers in South African women, leading to 17% of female deaths from cancer, the second highest percentage after cervical cancer, according to Statistics South Africa. It can also affect the breast tissue of men in rare cases.
The Philip Sceales and Janet Antrobus Cancer Research Trust has decided to entrust the majority of its assets, a sum of just over R 5.28 million, to the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in order to create a perpetual endowment to fund breast cancer research.
Research methods and treatments for breast cancer have diversified since the establishment of the Trust four decades ago, and today the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences combines discipline-specific research, on the one hand, with cross-disciplinary approaches for achieving practical outcomes, on the other.
Janet Antrobus died, aged 41, after a long battle with breast cancer. Wanting to ease the suffering of others afflicted with this cancer, she, and her father, Philip Sceales, who died not long after her, made bequests to establish a trust to fund breast cancer research.
Over the four decades since their passing, researchers at Wits University and several other breast cancer organisations in South Africa have been supported by this legacy. Now, the gifts of Janet Antrobus and Philip Sceales are entering a new phase at Wits, where the Philip Sceales and Janet Antrobus Breast Cancer Research Endowment Fund has been created.
“We are delighted that Wits has accepted the donation and established an endowment fund. This will ring-fence the funds and ensure that they are used for the purpose for which the Trust was established” said Grahame Lindop, the Chairman of the Trust, and a Wits graduate.
Commenting on this generous donation, Professor Shabir Madhi, Dean of the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences, said: “I wish to thank all the Trustees for entrusting this legacy to Wits University.
The Trust and the Faculty that I lead are both South African organisations that have worked over the decades to improve the lives and end the suffering of those with breast cancer.
Together, the endowment fund located in the Wits Foundation, and the Faculty of Health Sciences, will take forward the goal to find breast cancer breakthroughs through research, so that the result can be a fitting tribute to Janet Antrobus and Philip Sceales.”
Five of the six Schools in the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences (the exception being the School of Oral Health Sciences) conduct research which contributes to the broad spectrum of breast cancer care.
This is complemented by cross-disciplinary approaches such as those taken by the Infectious Diseases and Oncology Research Institute (IDORI), which integrates infectious disease and cancer research into goal-oriented programmes aiming to achieve practical, cost-effective solutions including rapid diagnostics and interventions suitable for use in Africa.
In future, the interest accrued from the Philip Sceales and Janet Antrobus Breast Cancer Research Endowment Fund will be used to fund breast cancer research of all kinds conducted by researchers at Wits University.