Nick Bird

Chair of Trustees

Solving Kids Cancer

Nick’s youngest son, Adam, was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma, a difficult to treat paediatric cancer, in 2009 at the age of 5. After Adam’s disease showed very little response to standard frontline therapy, and having exhausted all options in the UK, Nick and his family travelled to both Germany and America to enrol Adam on different clinical trials. Adam died at home in 2013, having been in near continuous treatment for 4 years. Since then Nick has continued to engage in activities relating to research and advocacy on behalf of other children and families affected by neuroblastoma and other childhood cancers. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees and Research Trustee for Solving Kids’ Cancer UK; Patient and Public Voice Representative for NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Children and Young People’s Cancer; a former member of the National Cancer Research Institute’s Children’s Group and Neuroblastoma Group; founding member of the Advocate Committee of SIOPEN, the European neuroblastoma research network; and founding Chair of the Advocate Committee of ITCC, an international research network conducting early phase trials for children and adolescents with cancer . Nick was also lead author of two advocate-only articles published in Journal of Clinical Oncology and Pediatric Blood & Cancer, examining issues of importance to the childhood cancer community.