It’s not uncommon for the multiple myeloma research team to be walking though the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer alongside supervisor Dr Craig Wallington-Beddoe and stop to chat with one of his patients.

These encounters, however brief, are a source of enormous motivation for PhD researcher Rachel Mynott. She hopes it is equally as encouraging for patients and their families. “These aren’t faceless patients to us, they’re just downstairs - we see them, we meet them, and we hear about their outcomes,” she says.

“Multiple myeloma is incurable, that’s something we’d obviously like to change.”

Your generous donations to the Autumn newsletter and multiple myeloma tax appeal in 2020 will go towards part-funding Rachel’s three-year PhD scholarship to investigate this aggressive blood cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. Thank you for your generous support.

Rachel's focus will be on finding different pathways to target and kill cancer cells, including one which looks at loading the cells with iron to see how they respond. “There’s some really good drugs out there to improve life expectancy for people with multiple  myeloma but despite that, people still develop resistance to these treatments,” Rachel says.

“So, we need to find a different way to trick the cells into dying…the end goal is to increase the efficacy of the drugs being used.”

Rachel is grateful for the opportunity to improve life expectancy and give hope to people diagnosed with the disease.

“It’s so nice to know we’re not just here on our own doing research and there are people who care and want to make it better for patients. Thank you.”

Additional funds raised through the tax appeal and a variety of other initiatives will support further research by Dr Craig Wallington- Beddoe – click here for more information about Craig's research.