Please help me raise funds for research into bowel disease at St Mark's Hospital, Harrow. Their research projects are typically led by consultants working at St Mark's, four of whom are taking part in this year's Challenge. That says everything about their conviction that this research work can lead to improved outcomes and a better quality of life for their patients.

Since being treated for bowel cancer at St Mark's in 2013/14, I have become involved in raising funds for their research programme. Directly and through associated individiual donations we have raised around £180,000 - that's enough to make a real difference. The first project we supported was Professor Brian Saunders' TASER programme, which is now being used to radically simpify the removal of large pre-cancerous polpys without the need for conventional surgery, leaving the patient able to lead a normal life thereafter.

New clinical procedures and surgical techniques that make a real difference to our lives are being developed constantly but rarely is this funded by the NHS. Donations made some years ago have helped me and many like me; please give what you can to help the next generation and to achieve St Mark's stated goal:

"To create a world free from the fear of bowel disease".