Our Future Health
Pandora has been donating blood for more than 10 years, but recently she found a new way to be a lifesaver.
Like thousands of donors, Pandora has contributed to Our Future Health, the UK's largest health research programme aimed at finding new ways to treat diseases.
"When I first gave blood, it wasn't for any personal reason," says Pandora, "I was lucky in that no one in my immediate circle had ever needed a blood transfusion."
As Pandora continued to make lifesaving donations, so too did her motivations: blood donation became something more personal. What made her happiest post-donation, though, was the knowledge that she might be saving someone's life, almost immediately.
It was that desire to help others that also led to her participating in Our Future Health.
Our Future Health is the UK's largest health research programme, designed to help people live longer, healthier lives.
By collecting a small sample of blood from millions of people like Pandora, the programme aims to help researchers better understand how diseases begin and progress.
Pandora, who donates at the new donor centre in Brixton, read about Our Future Health while giving blood and immediately signed up. A small sample was then taken alongside her next blood donation, after she completed a consent form and health questionnaire online.
"It was obvious to me that I should take part in such a brilliant research programme aimed at delivering better health outcomes for all of us," she says.
"So many diseases and illnesses can be prevented if caught sooner and helping to advance better detection and treatment of diseases sounded like a fantastic idea, and one that I was very keen to be a part of!"
With over 90,000 donors like her contributing to the programme, Pandora is pleased to be doing her part to further our understanding of common diseases like dementia, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer. It's important that all kinds of people take part, so that everyone is represented.
"Being able to improve or prevent the side effects of cancer is a big part of why I agreed to take part," she says. "Everyone in the UK has either personally or indirectly been impacted by cancer in their lifetime.
"The fact that cancer manifests in different ways depending on race and gender means I'm eager to take part in a programme that uses my health and genetic data to find any correlations in what can too often be such a preventable yet devastating disease."
Just like Pandora, it's in our blood to save lives. Now, and in the future.