Research gave Paula 20 more Christmases.
Help give someone else theirs.
It's research like Professor Bonder's that's the reason Paula is here today.
Too many people still face cancers that are difficult to treat, and many live with the effects of the treatments that save them.
Here in South Australia, Professor Claudine Bonder and her team at the Centre for Cancer Biology are investigating a more precise way to treat cancer. They are developing an antibody designed to recognise a particular protein in cancer cells. The aim is to target those cells while reducing some of the harmful effects associated with treatments such as chemotherapy.
Alongside this, the team is developing a blood test to identify people whose cancers carry that protein, so doctors could work out who might benefit. The approach has potential across several cancers, including breast and ovarian cancer. There is still work to do to establish how well it works.
One day, this work could mean a treatment matched to a person’s cancer, fewer side effects and more time with the people they love.
Almost 1 in 2 South Australians will be diagnosed with cancer before they turn 85
Your donation funds real impact.
Every donation this Christmas funds essential resources for vital cancer research. Your donation goes further than you think and means more than you could imagine.
$55
could go towards vital lab equipment—the everyday tools our researchers rely on to keep their work moving forward.
$120
can back a promising research idea in its earliest stages, when funding is hardest to find and makes the biggest difference.
$166
could keep a South Australian research project moving forward—work that might one day change outcomes for families across our state.
Paula Nagel survived cancer, thanks to research.
Breast cancer ran in Paula's family, so a mammogram every January was her New Year's resolution. In 2006, her mammogram result found a spot the size of a pinhead. It was breast cancer.
What she thought would be a small operation to take care of it, turned out to be not that simple. The cancer had spread through the breast and Paula needed a mastectomy.
On the night she had to decide about her surgery, alone in hospital, a nurse sat with her and said, “You need family here. I’ll be your family.”
Paula had a double mastectomy and reconstruction, but just two years later she was faced with another diagnosis - ovarian cancer.
Through it all, Paula has attributed her years since her treatment to cancer research.
"I have been given a great gift by the work that our researchers do" she says.
More research means more outcomes like hers, and more lives saved.
