The Merali family
The Merali family has supported breast cancer research at the University of Sheffield since 2006, funding clinical fellowships under Professor Rob Coleman and recently pledging £90,000 over four years to Professor Ottewell's novel research on treating breast cancer bone metastasis.
The Merali family supports medical research at Sheffield, in memory of Sanita Merali - beloved wife of Murt and mother of Farah and Nimah. Sanita died of breast cancer on 13th May 2006 but her legacy lives on through gifts to help with the diagnosis and treatments of illnesses, including breast cancer. Sanita had a career in the NHS, working in the midwifery section of the Nether Edge Hospital.
We have had a very positive experience working with the University of Sheffield as donors. We receive updates as required and are confident the funds donated are being put to good use. Our family has been based in Sheffield for over 50 years and during this time we have worked with the University on medical research projects to great success. One of our aims is to support research that allows other families to avoid the difficulties we faced when the diagnosis was given to Sanita. This project offers further insight into an illness that has deeply affected our family first-hand.
Nimah Merali
University of Sheffield donor
The Sanita Merali Trust made their first gift to the University through the Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience to fund research into preclinical models of neuro-degeneration. And in 2006, they went on to support Professor Rob Coleman who treated Sanita. This kind donation funded clinical fellowships in the Academic Unit of Clinical Oncology to further breast cancer research.
The family then went on to support the Sheffield Scanner appeal to bring a PET-MRI scanner to Sheffield to help with the diagnosis of a number of conditions including cancer.
To this day, the Merali family have continued to make generous donations in Sanita's memory, with a recent gift of £90,000 over four years now funding Professor Penelope Ottewell in the School of Medicine and Population Health. This gift is supporting Professor Ottewell's work in treating breast cancer bone metastasis.
This research aims to find an effective treatment for incurable breast cancer that has spread to the bone. The approach involves combining a bone-targeting radioactive drug (Ra-223) with drugs that stop cancer cells from repairing themselves after radiation exposure (DDRis). Since different types of breast cancer respond differently to treatment, the researchers are first identifying which DDRis work best with Ra-223 in various breast cancer subtypes. To make the lab tests more realistic, they are using a special "hypoxic chamber", funded by the Merali Family to mimic the low-oxygen environment of bone. So far, PhD student Diane Lefley has identified two promising DDRis for triple-negative breast cancer bone metastasis and is now investigating other breast cancer subtypes.
The University of Sheffield is incredibly grateful for the Merali family's ongoing support to a range of research projects, in memory of Sanita. The impact of the family's generosity truly is life-changing.