Interview with Prof Peter Johnson, Chief Clinician, Cancer Research UK

1 October 2014

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Professor Peter Johnson is Cancer Research UK’s Chief Clinician and directs the Southampton Cancer Research UK Centre. An expert in lymphoma, he talks passionately about how the Stand Up To Cancer live TV show can help in the fight against the deadly disease.

 

Why is Stand Up To Cancer so important to you?

It is exciting for us in all sorts of ways. It provides us with vital funds to help drive our research. It also provides a focus for how we turn our science into treatments.

 

What are you working on at present?

My own research is to do with treating lymphoma – Hodgkin’s and Non-Hodgkin’s types. We have a huge amount of information coming out of the cancer gene project telling us how cancer cells are different to normal blood cells. Many new drugs are coming through which are able to target the mutations that make lymphoma grow. We are looking at how we can find out quickly which people will be helped by the new kinds of treatment.

 

Are you pleased the survival rates have increased?

Survival rates have gone up steadily in the last forty years from one in four to one in two and at Cancer Research UK, we want to see that go up to three in four in the next twenty years. We can only do that if we get the best possible science to work in the clinic.

 

Cancer evokes a lot of emotions doesn’t it?

Being told you have cancer, even if it is a slow growing type or one that is curable by surgery, drugs or radiotherapy, is very frightening. I have to explain to people every week that they have cancer of one sort or another, so being able to offer them new treatments that can improve their chances of survival is terribly important.

 

Do you think people are very fearful of cancer?

Yes. It is still the number one health concern in people’s minds. Stand Up to Cancer is about safeguarding our future. It’s about preventing people from getting cancer, diagnosing it early and having better treatments to offer. Stand Up To Cancer is a chance for people to start fighting back.

 

Channel 4’s evening will be a lot of fun. Do you think humour is important in the fight against such a horrible disease?

You would be surprised at how much laughter you hear in my clinic. One of the great things about working in this field is to see how much courage and determination people have, even at very frightening and difficult times.

 

Have you been personally affected by cancer?

Everybody has. People in my family have had cancer. Some have died from it, but I also have people in my family who are living beyond it. They have had treatment and they are fine now: more than half of people diagnosed with cancer are alive more than 10 years later.

 

How rewarding does it feel to be helping find a cure?

The pace of progress is amazing, and very energising. It is an exciting time as there is so much new knowledge coming to the field. I get a real buzz out of this with new ideas coming along and new ways of treating people. Many of the treatments I use in my clinical work weren’t even invented when I qualified.

 

Do you think we can find a cure for cancer?

We already cure many types of cancer so in some sense we are partly there already. With Hodgkin’s disease for example, more than 80 per cent of people are cured, and we have seen the survival rates going up in many other types too.

 

Why should viewers pick up the phone to donate?

It is amazing how much people give to Cancer Research UK already. On the Stand Up To Cancer Channel 4 night, anything they can do to help us is incredibly carefully used. The more money we raise, the faster we can make progress.

 

Stand Up to Cancer is on Channel 4 on Friday 17th October.