Our History

Leukaemia Busters was founded in 1989 by three sets of parents, Wendy & Robert Sutcliffe, Julie & Paul Daws and Drs David and Sopsamorn (Bee) Flavell, whose children at that time were undergoing treatment at Southampton General Hospital for leukaemia or lymphoma. One of these sets of parents, Drs David & Bee Flavell, were already medical research scientists working on developing monoclonal antibodies for the diagnosis of leukaemia and lymphoma in their laboratories at Southampton General Hospital and it was their vision to fund research which would take those antibodies and use them for the targeted treatment of the very disease afflicting their only child, Simon.

So Leukaemia Busters was born from an urgent medical need and a shared common vision in which leukaemia and lymphoma could be easily and effectively treated by antibodies without the nasty and potentially life threatening side effects of conventional chemotherapy that the founding parent’s children had to endure.

Today that dream has started to turn to reality with antibody-based drugs now in common clinical use for a variety of cancers including lymphoma and leukaemia. Leukaemia Busters is proud to have played a role in this but we recognize that there is still much more research yet to be done to ensure that such antibody treatments are made maximally effective for all types of leukaemia and lymphoma.

The history behind Leukaemia Busters is a very personal one for its founding mothers and fathers. To learn more about the journey that took us to where we are today please follow the links below.

The Echo newspaper articles

One families greatest loss

January 6th, 2003

Constant hope for cure

January 7th, 2003

Working against time

January 8th, 2003

The fight to save Simon

January 9th, 2003

New start after mourning

January 10th, 2003