British professor makes ‘thrilling’ breakthrough for cancer that killed his mother

Paul Workman has researched untreatable chordoma for years. Now new technology points towards to a potential drug to beat it

Professor Paul Workman was 37 and already well established as a medical researcher when his mother, Ena, died of a rare bone cancer known as chordoma. About one in a million people are affected by the condition, which is untreatable.

It was utterly frustrating," said Workman, who later became head of the Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery and then chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, London. Thirty-six years ago, there was little we could do to treat chordoma. There was little understanding of the disease and no drugs were available to help my mother."