Professor Mel Greaves has been knighted in the New Year Honours List for his pioneering and hugely influential research into childhood leukaemia.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London in collaboration with a team at the Structural Genomics Consortium in Oxford (SGC) have created a new series of compound that could form the basis for drugs that target the devastating childhood brain cancer diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG.

All children with cancer should have the genetic profile of their tumour comprehensively analysed when being considered for new treatments, say leading childhood cancer experts.