Sunflower Jam celebrates Jon Lord and fights pancreatic cancer

Exactly two months to the day Jon Lord passed, the Sunflower Jam 2012 will celebrate his memory with a special tribute and donate funds to the fight against pancreatic cancer.

The Sunflower Jam 2012 – at London’s Royal Albert Hall on September 16 – will feature a tribute to Jon. Details of the music featured have yet to be confirmed, but the list of stars performing on the night includes a slew of Jon’s peers; Ian Paice, John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Brian May (Queen), Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Steve Balsamo, and more.

Jon Lord was a trustee of the charity and performed there seveal times, most recently with Rick Wakeman and Joe Bonamassa in 2011.

By supporting this year’s Sunflower Jam, you will be helping to fight pancreatic cancer, help research new approaches and enable all pancreatic cancer patients and their relatives to get all the information they require.

Buy tickets and get more information

Review 2011: Lord & Wakeman world premiere at Sunflower Jam

Watch: Jon Lord and Rick Wakeman at Sunflower Jam 2011

Sunflower Jam on pancreatic cancer
The Sunflower Jam will use the proceeds of this year’s Jam to do original research on integrated approaches to pancreatic cancer and also produce an easily readable summary of promising treatments for patients with pancreatic cancer.

This will include conventional medicine, lifestyle approaches including nutrition, complementary treatments such as immune Modulation Therapy and hyperthermia, treatments that are beginning to look promising such as photodynamic therapy and the ways in which the mind can be harnessed to help fight this disease.

Mustafa B A Djamgoz, Professor of Cancer Biology at Imperial College London, will head the research into these Non Toxic treatments. By getting these type of treatments recognised within the medical field, Sunflower Jam hopes these forms of treatment can be used as an alternative answer to fight pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most difficult cancers to treat, not helped by the fact that it often progresses without manifesting strong signs. Also, when treated commonly with chemotherapy, drug resistance ensues, adding further difficulty to the long-term management of the disease. Consequently, at present, the five-year survival rate for this cancer is less than 5 %.

College of Medicine
The College of Medicine (CoM) advocates integrated approaches to healthcare. Overall, this means combining ‘western’ therapies with complementary remedies some of which are derived from ‘eastern’ (e.g. Chinese) medicine but not exclusively so.

New Research Programme It is proposed that using a donation of £50-60K (expected) from the Sunflower Jam concert, a programme is set up to support integrated research on pancreatic cancer.

1. CoM will issue a call on their website for pilot research projects costing £20K maximum and lasting 12 months. In principle, some kind of apportionment may be introduced (e.g. not more than one-half of the grants may normally be given to the ‘inside’). The world should see then that the College is not inward looking. However, quality will be the single most important criterion.

2. Applications will be made on a basic form (2-3 pages) by a given deadline. There will not be unnecessary paperwork.

3. A small committee (say 4 people, chosen mostly, but not necessarily exclusively from within the Science Council of CoM, and including a Trustee of SJ) will be set up. Peer review will be deemed absolutely essential.

4. Strict criteria will be used for making the awards – quality, feasibility, novelty, future potential, track record of the applicant etc.

The scheme will be administered by the College of Medicine’s Science Council (chaired by Professor Mustafa B A Djamgoz, Imperial College London).