A MULTI-MILLION-POUND grant to tackle the 'painful' history of asbestos in Scotland has been announced.

Cancer Research UK has awarded £2.1 million to researchers in Glasgow and Cambridge to find out what happens in the decades between initial exposure to asbestos and the diagnosis of mesothelioma.

It can take decades for exposure to asbestos to develop into cancer.

Noel Hynes, from Clydebank, welcomed the research. His father, Patrick, died from mesothelioma in 2020.

He said: “My dad worked in the shipyards for three or four years in the late 1950s and early 60s.

"He was working with concrete at the docks and other workers were breaking up sheets of asbestos next to him which caused white dust.

“They were all breathing it in with no masks or protection back then – in those days they just got on with it.”

After leaving the shipyard, Patrick continued to work with concrete, later working as a lorry driver and latterly helping at his son’s bus company, but never worked with asbestos again.

Noel said: “He was an active man all his life, never had a lie in and even after retirement would work in my brother’s garage five or six days a week just helping out.”

Patrick started to feel breathless in 2017 and it became progressively worse until he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in October 2018 and he died, aged 91, in May 2020.

Noel said: “It was difficult to see someone so strong and active struggling to breathe.”

Noel now works as a volunteer with the Clydebank Asbestos Group.

He added: “It’s terrible to see what asbestos does.

“To see my dad, who hardly missed a day of work in his life and never complained, suffering with pain was just heartbreaking for the family to watch.

"He was such a strong, brave man.”

Professor Daniel Murphy works at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow and the University of Glasgow.

He will be leading the research in Glasgow and is hoping to find a way to make it easier to diagnose and treat mesothelioma before symptoms appear.

He said: “Asbestos exposure has cast a dark shadow over Glasgow and the west coast of Scotland with incidence rates of mesothelioma significantly higher here than the Scottish average.

“Mesothelioma is difficult to treat, and outcomes are usually poor for those diagnosed.

“In order to develop new strategies for the prevention and treatment of mesothelioma, we need a much deeper understanding of the basic biology behind how it progresses.

“This new programme, REMIT, will build on substantial previous funding from Cancer Research UK for the world-leading Glasgow-led projects PREDICT-Meso and IAMMED-Meso, which seek to define the high-risk indicators for patients with pre-cancerous lung abnormalities potentially developing cancer. 

“Together, they will now form a comprehensive strategy for early detection, risk stratification and more effective treatments for mesothelioma patients.”