A new charity shop has officially opened on Byres Road.
Cancer Research UK said its premises at 388 – opposite Waitrose – will help raise money towards new treatments and save lives.
A young mother who was treated for breast cancer during the pandemic performed the opening honours.
Lori Delaney was joined by research scientist Dr Seth Coffelt at a ceremony to cut the ribbon.
Meanwhile, a call has gone out for volunteers to help staff the shop and for the public to drop off donations.
Good-quality clothes, shoes, bags, books and homeware are welcome.
Every bag of donated items could raise up to £25 – or £31 with Gift Aid if the donor is a UK taxpayer, according to the charity.
Lori, 36, said: “I’ll play my part and help every way I can to support people going through cancer this Christmas.
“Life can change in a heartbeat. I remember so well what started as an ordinary day for me dropping my children at school changed in an instant when I was told I had cancer.
‘Raise awareness’
“I think it’s important to raise awareness about early intervention. I was diagnosed with breast cancer just before the pandemic.
“I was actually at a GP appointment for something completely different that day and only happened to mention that I’d found what I thought might be a lump and asked the doctor to have a look.
“If I’d been in the same situation six months later during lockdown things might have been very different.”
The Phd student the University of Glasgow, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2019, is now in remission.
Dr Coffelt is a scientist at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow.
His team are working to understand more about cancer including how it spreads around the body. They are examining how cancer cells can escape the immune system.
Dr Coffelt said: “Normally, immune cells fight off infection, but we know that tumours change the behaviour of some immune cells to make them their accomplice rather than their enemy.
Life can change in a heartbeat. I remember so well what started as an ordinary day for me dropping my children at school changed in an instant when I was told I had cancer
Lori Delaney
“We want to understand how this process happens in cancer so we can block it.
“With this information we hope to identify new immunotherapies that could interfere with how cancer manipulates the body’s immune cells.”
Stock on sale on launch day included goods worth a total of £5,000 donated by Slater Menswear Glasgow.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “We’re incredibly grateful to Lori and hope her inspiring story encourages people to support the charity so we can continue to fund the very best scientists in Scotland and across the UK.
“COVID-19 has slowed us down, but we will never stop.
“It has been a challenging time but our new shop in Glasgow is worth celebrating as it will fund world-class research to help improve the lives of people affected by cancer.”
