A trio of 60+ year olds from the North West – Noel Hastings, Mike Keel and Andy White, are fue to take on one of Britain’s toughest challenges. The trio aim to complete the Pennine Way, which stretches 268 miles, in just 19 days, to raise money for research and development into curing Neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF2) and Schwannomatosis, two rare genetic disorders.
Noel, Mike, and Andy are determined not to let ageing limbs slow down their fundraising efforts. In 2019, Andy’s daughter Rebecca was diagnosed with NF2, and in the same year, Noel’s daughter Hayley was diagnosed with Schwannomatosis. The trio, with a combined age of 185, will walk 268 miles along the Pennine hills from Edale to Kirk Yetholm to raise £20,000 for NF2 BioSolutions UK and Europe, a charity funding approximately 15 different novel therapy research projects globally to find a cure for NF2 and Schwannomatosis.
NF2 causes non-cancerous tumours to grow on nerves in the central nervous system and on peripheral nerves. Schwannomatosis causes multiple non-cancerous schwannoma tumours to grow on nerves throughout the body, causing chronic pain, weakness, numbness, and headaches. With fewer than 1000 people in the UK currently diagnosed with NF2 and an estimated 1 in 40,000 people having Schwannomatosis, research efforts to find a cure are competing for scarce resources.
NF2 BioSolutions UK and Europe is financing a particularly promising avenue of repurposing existing drugs for effective treatment, which is being researched by PhD students Grace Gregory and Adam Paul Jones at the University of Manchester. Their work aims to find a therapy able to act on both tumour types by identifying specific immune cells present in both vestibular schwannomas and meningiomas and how they contribute to tumour-associated inflammation.
The fundraising challenge will help Grace’s and Adam’s work to continue and provide hope for those facing NF2 and Schwannomatosis. The trio is looking for regional businesses in the Northwest to donate to their cause and raise awareness of these rare diseases.
For more information about the challenge and to donate to the cause, please visit the fundraising page at https://www.peoplesfundraising.com/fundraising/walkfornf2two
