Bude Animal Friends, a local support group for the charity Animal Free Research UK, ended 2018 on a high.

Last year, the Bude group raised a fabulous £5,650.96 for a breast cancer project, which takes their total fundraising since 2016 to a staggering £22,326.01.

Steph Jones-Giles, a community ambassador for Animal Free Research UK, told the Post that she was delighted with the amount raised.

She said: “Bude Animal Friends is a dedicated group of volunteers who give their time and energy to raising awareness and funds for Animal Free Research UK. Every penny donated is given to the charity. It is humbling how the community have supported us raising funds for research into heart disease, brain tumours, leukaemia and breast cancer.”

Animal Free Research UK funds pioneering human relevant research which advances medicine for human diseases and removes animals from cruel experiments.

Steph added: “Some of the results are staggering and no more so than our diabetes campaign in 2019.”

Professor Lorna Harries and Dr Nicola Jeffery at University of Exeter Medical School, have been looking at the mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes.

After discovering evidence that a proportion of the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin aren’t dying, but are changing into other types of cells, Lorna and Nicola wanted to find out the reasons why the cells alter their identity in this way.

But they’ve gone above and beyond this and have discovered that this transformational process can be reversed, which could soon lead the way to treatments that will cure the condition.

Lorna and Nicola have developed a new scientific method which uses human pancreatic beta cell lines, grown in the laboratory without the use of any animals. This is cutting-edge research at its best — their exciting discoveries would never have been made if they had carried out conventional cruel experiments on mice as they are so different from humans.

Professor Harries said: “We are delighted that the local community in Bude are getting behind our important Animal Free Research UK diabetes research. This support will be invaluable in helping us to continue our work.

“We are hopeful that our ground-breaking research will lead to new effective treatments for type 1 and type 2 diabetes, helping improve the lives of countless individuals. Our research uses only human systems which is important for both scientific and ethical reasons. Our current findings would not have been possible using mouse experiments, as the mouse pancreas, and how the cells within it communicate, is configured different to ours.”

Bude Animal Friends nominate a member to undertake a sponsored event each year and 2019 does not disappoint. Local lady, Jackie Diffey, has set herself the challenge of paddling a surf ski 20km on Bude Canal.

Jackie said: “My mum passed away from diabetes-related complications and so I know first-hand how devastating this disease can be to an individual and family. I have set myself quite a challenge as this means paddling 10 lengths of Bude Canal — usually two to four lengths leaves me exhausted!”

Jackie is undertaking the challenge on April 27 to mark her mum’s birthday and she hopes to raise £500 for the diabetes research project. You can donate at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jackie-diffey3.

If you would like to join the Bude Animal Friends group, contact Steph on 07971 454214.