An Oxfordshire brewery has had a £168,000 grant for cancer research named after it in recognition of its fundraising efforts.

Hook Norton Brewery has spent almost 20 years supporting Leukaemia Research, after managing director James Clarke lost his sister Victoria to the disease in 1986.

To highlight their hard work, the charity has dedicated a study grant -- called the Hook Norton Fellowship -- to workers and villagers living in the surrounding community, who have all helped raise money for the cause.

Mr Clarke, pictured with Oxford scientist Dr Graham Collins, who has been awarded the fellowship, said: "We're honoured. My family may have started the fundraising, but it's the local community who continue to work wholeheartedly to raise funds for Leukaemia Research.

"We are confident that the money raised will help Leukaemia Research in its aim to find the cures and improve treatment for these punishing blood cancers."

Dr Collins is carrying out research into Hodgkin's lymphoma, which affects 1,400 people in the UK every year.

Together with a team at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospitalx, he is using state-of-the-art biological technology to look at cancer patients' DNA to see if gene abnormalities play a key part in the development of the disease.