Raising Awareness and Funds for Blood Cancer Research with Snowdome Foundation

The MY Mount Eliza Festival was founded by Mount Eliza local Geoff Nyssen who, in 2014 at the age of 40, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. When Geoff was diagnosed, it was devastating news for him as well his wife Sarah, two young kids, his family and friends. Despite this adversity, Geoff has found the strength to lead by example and to give back to the community that has provided so much support to him. Myeloma being a terminal cancer, Geoff is determined to dance the funky chicken at his 80th birthday party. #HelpGeoffTo80

Making Real Change for Myeloma Patients

Since 2017, the MY Mount Eliza Run & Fun Festival has raised more than $500k to fund lifesaving and life-changing blood cancer research. This is what our community has funded:

  • The first project, which is being undertaken by Epworth Healthcare, will determine if blood tests known as circulating tumour (ctDNA) assays can replace invasive bone marrow biopsies in certain cases of multiple myeloma and related blood cancers.

  • The second project looks to advance Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-Cell therapy which is one of the most revolutionary advances in medical science in recent years.  CAR T-Cell therapy is an immunotherapy that uses a patients’ own immune system to destroy cancer cells using specifically altered T-cells. There have been major successes in remission and relapse-free survival rates with cell therapies treatments. However, more research is needed in optimising CAR T-cell therapies for myeloma patients. This second project, being undertaken by the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, will further explore how to make the therapy more robust and durable, hoping to extend remission durations to well beyond six years!  

By getting involved and helping raise money you will fund research that will help myeloma patients (like event founder Geoff Nyssen) live longer, better lives! On behalf of Snowdome Foundation, the researchers, clinicians, Australian blood cancer patients, their families and loved ones – THANK YOU for your support.

The Snowdome Foundation was formed in 2010 with a mission to accelerate next-generation treatments for Australian blood cancer (leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma) patients to help them live longer, better lives. Snowdome works to fast-track access to innovative blood cancer treatments by channelling your donations into ground-breaking medical research, clinical trials and personalised therapies. In many cases, clinical trials are the last ‘hope’ for patients.