FAMILES who have lost loved ones to pancreatic cancer have welcomed the creation of a groundbreaking new tissue bank to boost research.

The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF) has invested £2m in setting up the world’s first national tissue bank to try to research a cure to the lethal disease – the UK’s most deadly.

The new facility will store tissue samples from patients taken from six hospital trusts around the country including Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust.

Surgeons, doctors and researchers will then use the tissue samples to try to discover a cure for the cancer.

Kelley Spacey has campaigned for more cash to help patients with pancreatic cancer after her mum Janet Priest died just seven weeks after being diagnosed in 2011.

Mrs Priest, 63 from Greater Leys, died in August that year after ticking off a ‘bucket list’ of dying wishes including renewing her wedding vows with husband Terry.

Mrs Spacey, 43 from Rose Hill, said the new tissue bank was a massive breakthrough and added: “It’s really exciting. For us it’s massive, if they are able to save some lives from it.

“I cannot bring back my mum but it could end up saving one of my family members.”

Because surgery is the best way to treat pancreatic cancer, if the disease is diagnosed late and has spread to other parts of the body it can be impossible to remove the tumour.

Mrs Spacey hopes the new facility will find new ways to diagnose the disease earlier before it spreads and becomes inoperable.

She is also campaigning for the government to put the drug used to treat pancreatic cancer – Abraxane – back on the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) list through an online petition which has gathered 24,600 signatures.

The Cancer Drugs Fund is money the government has set aside to pay for cancer drugs that have not been approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and aren’t available within the NHS in England.

The new tissue bank will be based at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), and will store anonymous samples of tumours taken directly from about 1,000 patients a year. PCRF CEO Maggie Blanks, said the scarcity of tissue samples had been holding back progress on new cures.

Visit petition.parliament.uk/petitions/107388.