Oldham-based Lighting Motions has donated £10,000 to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Department of Paediatric Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, to help fund research into gene therapies for children diagnosed with lymphoid leukaemia.
The donation is very close to the hearts of everyone at the family-run business with the company’s Finance & HR Manager, Tara Mustafa’s eight-year old son Armaan currently undergoing three years of chemotherapy treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) under the care of Dr. Denise Bonney, Consultant in Paediatric Haematology at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
Exciting new treatments in the form of gene therapy, where the immune system is genetically changed to attack the leukaemia, has seen children that were formally incurable, now entering remission and many becoming cured. With only Manchester and Great Ormond Street treating children with such immune therapy (known as CAR T-cell therapy), the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital is already seeing the amazing responses in their own patients.
Through charitable donations, the University Hospital, one of the largest in the country as well as one of the largest paediatric cancer treatment centres and paediatric bone marrow transplant centres, aims to expand its scientific team to further develop gene therapies for other non-cancerous blood disorders, to treat young patients in Manchester.
Sullaman Murtaza, Managing Director of Lighting Motions comments, “As a family, we are incredibly grateful for all the excellent care Armaan has received at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital since he was diagnosed with ALL back in September last year. Knowing the difference further research into gene therapy can make to not only his life but many others, led to our easy decision to hand over this cheque to the wonderful clinical and research teams in Manchester.”
