Eurocancercoms, a two year European Commission FP7 funded initiative, looked at issues and bottlenecks surrounding the communication and dissemination of cancer information across Europe, with the aim of establishing one efficient communications network for all those involved in cancer and have created ecancerHub to fulfil this need.

ecancerhub features tools that have not previously been available to the cancer community on any other portal. One exclusive function is the cancer centre search facility, which enables patients to search and pinpoint cancer units and research centres local to them within a specified radius. There is also a search engine, built specifically for ecancerHub, which filters information specific to the users requirements from a vast number of approved content sources.

Since its July beta launch of the ecancerHub site, hundreds of doctors, patients, and researchers have registered and contributed to the images, videos and research documents in ecancerHub’s library, thus highlighting the need for the platform..

One of the largest demographics to embrace and contribute to ecancerHub is that of patients. “This is really an excellent resource – I have spent some time browsing – and will definitely pop in and out of the site regularly”, read one patient’s comment.

One of the forerunners of newgen social sites, ecancerHub provides a much needed portal for all users to access and share up-to-date cancer information, research and guidance from within the cancer community. The platform will continue to grow and increase in importance as more and more members join and contribute. 

LIVEWIRE: Professor Gordon McVie (excerpt courtesy TheDesignAvenue)

Gordon McVie attributes his successes to "not being much good at anything at school, not getting on with Robin Cook who was in my chemistry class and although was irritating, was so clever he made the rest of us look thick, and an overriding desire to become a farmer being stamped out because the number of male progeny in my family was high (in fact statistically peverse)."

At 31 he was the youngest and only specialist oncologist in Scotland and in 1969 his research into the pathology and 'cure' of Hodgkins disease finally meant the label of average could be snipped off.

With Ken Common, and Sir Derrick Dunlop ( first Chairman of UK Medicines Safety Committee) he set up the Glasgow Oncology Research Unit ("a portacabin atop the hospital")  five years later leaving to establish a center for new-drugs research in Holland.

Professor McVie recalls the day he walked into the unit and "there were 12 beds, completely reserved for cancer drugs research – and a lab too!" Once again, that sense of curiosity was switched on.

Now in his 60s,  he no longer works out of "a shed on a roof" but has held prestigious posts such as Clinical Research director at the National Cancer Institute of the Netherlands in the 80s, co-founder and President of the European Organisation for Treatment and Research into Cancer (EORTC), New Drug Development Office.