A charity set up by a late teenager who was suffering from a brain tumour will fund potentially life-saving research.

Grace Boxall, of Buckhurst Hill, died a week before her 16th birthday on September 26 last year.

She and her family set up the charity Smiles With Grace to raise money for research into childhood cancers while she was in remission.

Now, as the anniversary of her death approaches, Grace’s father, Peter, has announced the charity will be the sole funder of research being carried out by neurosurgeon Dominic Thompson, who twice operated on the teenager.

Mr Thompson is developing a technique to assess the outcome of surgery on children suffering from spinal lipoma, a build up of fat or a growth in the spinal column which causes progressive neurological defects.

Smiles With Grace will give £58,000 to the research at University College London.

Mr Boxhall said: “We wanted to do something tangible. We were raising money for all these other charities which do good work but we felt like the money was going in a black hole.”

“This development is the start of something that can get so much bigger. Ideally we would like to help develop a range of products that could help children like Grace all over the world.”

“Right now we want it to provide focus and energy to all those fantastic people who have worked so hard fundraising.”

“Grace would be honoured by all this. It’s what she would want to do with the money.”

Click here to donate to Grace’s charity