Medical breakthroughs

For Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, funding research is essential to advancing patient care

On the cutting edge

Thanks to the Freemasons Fund for Surgical Research, the Royal College of Surgeons is able to support some of the most groundbreaking medical research in the UK. Steven Short discovers the exceptional work being done

It was a very good year. Not only did England win the World Cup in 1966, it was the start of the United Grand Lodge of England’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The Grand Master at that time, the Earl of Scarbrough, launched a charitable appeal ahead of the 1967 event, proposing that every Freemason give £1 towards ‘the betterment of human health and happiness’. This initiative evolved into a charitable fund to support research by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), covering salary and research costs for young surgeons in training. By 2013, however, it had become apparent that – because of the increased cost of research and the exponential growth in surgical research activity – a different plan was needed.

Royal Arch Freemasons stepped in, raising £2.5 million in their bicentenary appeal, generously providing a new source of funding and creating the Freemasons Fund for Surgical Research, which now supports four surgeons each year. Paving the way for vital work ‘The research beast is always hungry,’ says Professor Derek Alderson, president of the RCS. ‘We fund around 30 research fellowships each year – from around 120 applicants. We look at our lists and identify those appropriate for a Freemasons fellowship, from which we shortlist seven or eight, and fund four.’ A rigorous selection process sees applicants give a presentation on their proposed research project, and applications are assessed by three experts in the relevant field.

Among the research Freemasons have funded is that of Michelle Griffin, who is working to develop stem cells to grow in biocompatible implants for facial reconstruction. ‘It’s obviously going to take a few years until it reaches our bedsides and the NHS,’ Alderson says, ‘but it’s very exciting to think that you will one day be able to renew and repair something rather than using an artificial implant.’ An early recipient of Freemason funding was Peter Hutchinson in 1996. Hutchinson worked with people with brain injuries, investigating how brain chemistry contributes to injury. He is now the director of the RCS’s clinical research programme and a professor of neurosurgery in Cambridge.

‘We work with people long term,’ says Martyn Coomer, head of research at the RCS. ‘They are with us throughout their professional career, sometimes 30 years or more.’

Another surgeon who has received funding is Caroline Moore. Moore, who is the UK’s first-ever female professor of urology, specialises in prostate cancer and has recently been in the news due to her role in developing new treatments and screening guidelines for the condition. ‘These people are the jewels in the college’s crown,’ Alderson says.

Scott Willoughby, major gift fundraiser at the RCS, describes the research funded by the Freemasons Fund for Surgical Research as ‘seed corn projects’, with funding providing support at an early stage to help researchers develop initial results and data. ‘Projects are what we call “bench to bedside”. It’s not just science in the lab, it’s intrinsically linked to the patient experience.’

In his role, Willoughby nurtures relationships with donors and ensures they are aware of the projects that are being funded. ‘I help them understand what their donation is paying for and how their generous gifts are helping patients.’ A much-needed leg-up Coomer also aids Freemasons in understanding where their money is being spent and the good it is doing by visiting lodges and giving presentations about the fund. ‘About 20 years ago I got a call from a Freemason in York, who asked me, “What are you doing with our money?” So I said we’d visit and tell him. ‘We visited 98 lodges around the country [in two years] with research fellows who talked about their work. We made sure their presentations were easy to understand. The recipients talked about themselves, the awful disease they were looking at and the progress they were making, in plain speak that everyone could understand.’

Coomer continues to visit lodges, not just in the UK but overseas, and Willoughby encourages Freemasons to request a presentation as an informal yet informative way of understanding how their support advances surgical care. ‘It’s amazing how many people will stand up during a presentation and tell you their story and how they’ve benefited from medical research,’ Coomer says. ‘I did a presentation in Durham a few years ago with one of our professors and at the end of the evening, a Freemason stood up and said, “That man saved my life!”’

Following their Freemasonry-funded fellowships, young surgeons go on to seek funding from larger organisations. Alderson explains: ‘We give one year, but 80 per cent of our research fellows do three years of research. We give them a leg up so they get their pilot data and with that apply to the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK or Medical Research Council to carry on.

‘Our transfer-through rate of success is about 90 per cent. If you’re a Royal College of Surgeons Freemasons fellow, you go from being just someone hoping for funding to having a 90 per cent chance of getting more funding because of the fellowship.’ Alderson also highlights how surgical research is advancing human knowledge: ‘Our knowledge base is expanding faster and faster as it gets bigger and bigger. It’s a great time to be in surgery with so many exciting developments like tissue engineering, robotics and so on… We’re reaping the fruits of research that’s been done over the past 20 years, and it’s just going to accelerate.’ ‘Our knowledge base is expanding faster and faster. We’re reaping the fruits of research that’s been done over the past 20 years, and it’s just going to accelerate’

To organise a visit to your lodge to learn about the RCS’s work, email fundraising@rcseng.ac.uk or call 0207 869 6082