Fundraising target met for £25m Southampton cancer centre

Scientists are set to move into the new Centre for Cancer Immunology at University Hospital Southampton in March

A campaign to finance a university's £25m cancer research centre has reached its target.

The University of Southampton said it had hit its fundraising goal six months early, raising money entirely through philanthropic donations.

Teams are set to start researching new treatments at the Centre for Cancer Immunology from March.

University vice chancellor Sir Christopher Snowden said the centre was "the first of its kind in the UK".

A fundraising campaign for the four-storey building, based at Southampton General Hospital, started in 2015.

It will home 50 research staff and a specialist clinical trials unit,

Sir Chris said: "The next few years will see great advances in immunotherapies for cancer with the University of Southampton at the very forefront of discovery."