A SCOTS cancer expert has received an award for turning Glasgow into a leading centre for leukaemia research.

Professor Tessa Holyoake won the £10,000 Scottish Cancer Foundation’s inaugural prize in recognition of her work on comparing cancer stem cells with normal cells to identify potential courses of treatment.

The research, which is carried out at the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre at Glasgow University, where she is director, offers hope of new treatments for the condition, survival rates for which have dramatically improved over recent years.

Professor Holyoake said she was “both touched and honoured” to receive the award.

The money will be used to fund her groundbreaking research.

Professor Bob Steele, the chairman of the Scottish Cancer Foundation, said they could not have found “a more worthwhile recipient” for the first-ever award than Professor Holyoake.

He said her work was of international significance, and was a “fine example of how research in the laboratory is helping at the bedside”.