A CANCER doctor has received an award from a leading charity to help her find more ways to treat the disease.

Oncology registrar Victoria Woodcock has been given a clinical fellowship by Cancer Research UK.

The fellowship is worth about £50,000 a year and will help fund the 32-year-old’s research at the Oxford University Clinical Trials Unit at the Churchill Hospital.

Dr Woodcock, who lives in Woodstock, is planning on working in the clinical trials unit for up to three years.

She said: “I was working at the Churchill as an oncology registrar and I’m about halfway to becoming a consultant.

“The fellowship is going to be really good as it allows me to break up my training and get in-depth knowledge of administrating clinical trials.

“It’s exciting to help develop drugs which I hope could one day save thousands of lives – it’s a great feeling.” Cancer Research UK has called the doctor “one of the UK’s most promising cancer doctors.”

The charity’s director of clinical research, Dr Ian Walker, said: “In order to develop future cancer treatments we must invest in scientists and doctors – which is why we’re supporting talented doctors like Victoria through this programme.”

Clinical trials are used to test new drugs or types of therapy and potentially uncover better ways of treating patients.

Dr Woodcock said: “There’s a high number of clinical trials going on in Oxford. The trials are a bit of a mixture.”

She plans to work predominately on immunotherapy treatments which attempt to stimulate the body’s immune system to tackle cancer and prevent it from returning.

Dr Woodcock added: “The immune system has a memory of its own. If it can remember fighting cancer before, the hope is that it will remember fighting it again and hopefully will suppress it further.”

Cancer Research UK has announced that life expectancy of people who suffer from cancer has dramatically increased.

About 50 per cent of sufferers will survive cancer for at least 10 years.

Dr Woodcock started working in Oxford four years ago after studying medicine at Warwick University.

She said: “Oxford is a good place for innovative medicine and research.

“Hopefully we will be able to find new treatments that will help save more people from cancer.”