Greek blood in the fight against blood cancers
- by Theodore Panagopoulos
- Jan 25, 2018
- 6 min read
Having lost his own brother and many other close family members to cancer, a scientist and researcher of Greek descent from Adelaide is at the front line for the fight against blood cancers.
Dr Peter Diamond, born and bred in Adelaide, is the Blood Cancer Support Manager of the Leukaemia Foundation for South Australia and the Northern Territory.
A scientist with a long experience in cancer research, Dr Diamond comes face to face with the dreaded disease as he deals with the difficult journey for those diagnosed with blood cancers, especially children.
“It’s an extremely difficult task mainly because you have to deal with vulnerable people who are facing a serious health problem,” he says.
“No one is in a position to understand the psychological state of someone who has just been diagnosed with such a deadly disease and prepare for the process that follows, that is, travel, accommodation, access to appropriate therapies and support programs.
This is where we step in and provide vital services."
The Leukaemia Foundation has more than 170 accommodation units available to patients and their families across Australia and last year alone, were provided more than 53,000 nights of free accommodation to these families.
Dr Diamond started in cancer research in 1995 straight after he finished his Bachelor of Science, Honours at the University of Adelaide.
He went to work in the Department of Human Immunology at the Hanson Centre for Cancer Research in Adelaide undertaking his PhD through the department of Medicine.
Working to understand the molecular biology of gene regulation became the main focus of his research during my 20 year career as a scientist.
“After working for a short period of time in plant genetics, while at university, I quickly realised that I was more interested in human biology, medicine and understanding cancer.”
“I was always fascinated by the human body and in particular looking at how our genes were regulated and understanding the mutations in genes that lead to cancer.”
However, he experienced firsthand the drama a cancer patient goes through as he saw close family members succumbing to the disease one after the other.
Between 2001 and 2014 his immediate family lost five of its members, including his eldest brother Con.
It was around the time he started his PhD when his auntie lost her battle with lymphoma and the drama was unfortunately set to continue.
“I dedicated the work that I undertook and my thesis to her memory with the hope that one day we would find a cure for blood cancers.”
“The fact that I have lost so many family members to cancer, means that I feel privileged to work for the Leukaemia Foundation who are the only national charity dedicated to helping Australian survive their blood cancer and live a better quality of life,” he says.
Working for the Leukaemia Foundation, Dr Diamond is part of a national well organised team that support blood cancer patients around Australia.
The Foundations’ vision is to improve treatments and access to new therapies and ultimately find a cure for blood cancers.
“To realise this vision the Leukaemia Foundation, through its research program, has invested over $38 million, since 2005, into funding the best research in Australia into blood cancers.”
The Foundation also provides assistance and emotional support to people living with blood cancer and their families and friends over the phone, in hospital or at their homes.
“We want to see more and more people beat the disease and this is why we invest in research programs for new therapies and also programs that help a patient go through the whole process as smooth as possible”
Statistics show that now the number of people who die from leukaemia is double from those who lose their life to skin cancer.
According to a recent media release by the Foundation, blood cancer, specifically leukaemia and lymphoma, still remain the most commonly diagnosed childhood cancer in children under the age of 14.
“Currently there are over 60,000 Australians living with a blood cancer and unfortunately this number is on the rise.”
The same media release reveals that there are 35 new cases of blood cancer in Australia every day.
“We still don’t know what causes blood cancer,” Dr Diamond says.
It is estimated that the risk of an individual being diagnosed with leukaemia by their 85th birthday will be 1 in 59 (1 in 46 males and 1 in 79 females).
The experienced researcher says however that blood cancer treatments have made big advances and the results from these treatments look promising.
“One of the biggest advances in treatment is in the area of personalised medicine,” says Dr Diamond.
Standard chemotherapy is a good treatment for many cancers as it destroys the rapidly dividing cancer cells, unfortunately it also destroys healthy cells in particular in the digestive system, liver and lungs.
Personalised medicine is where new anti-cancer drugs have been developed to specifically target the cancer cell.
This kind of treatment has fewer side effects and is better at targeting the cancer.
One of the biggest advances in blood cancers is in the field of CAR- T cell therapy.
This is where T cells (the cells from the immune system which find and destroy cancer cells in the body) are isolated from the patient, genetically engineered in the laboratory to specifically recognise the patient’s particular blood cancer and then given back to the patient.
Where this has been used over 80% of patients have had full recovery from their blood cancer.
This treatment is very new and still undergoing trials but it has the potential to be a cure for some blood cancers.
The cost involved for such researches is often astronomical and this is why researchers rely on donations and fundraisers, especially when they are not funded by the Government.
This is why the Leukaemia Foundation holds one of the biggest fundraisers in Australia, the “World’s Greatest Shave" where thousands of Australians raise funds by getting sponsored to shave or colour their hair.
More than 1.9 million people have been involved in World’s Greatest Shave since 1998 and in that time WGS has raised more than $200 million dollars.
“In 1998, children diagnosed with leukaemia had around a 65% chance of survival. Today, improvements in treatment and care mean that 90% of these children will survive the disease,” Dr Diamond says.
Despite these huge improvements in the treatment of childhood leukaemia though, blood cancers including lymphoma, myeloma and leukaemia are still one of Australia’s leading causes of death with one Australian losing their life to blood cancer every 2 hours.
“By signing up and raising money for the World’s Greatest Shave you can make a difference by giving families facing blood cancer the emotional and practical support they need,” the Adelaide researcher says.
At the same time, participation means one can help raise funds for vital research which can lead to the development of a permanent cancer cure.
It’s worth mentioning that The Leukaemia Foundation received no ongoing financial support from the government and relies on the generous donations from the public and businesses to provide to support to people living with blood cancer.
To register for World’s Greatest Shave to support the work of the Leukaemia Foundation, you can visit their website at worldgreatestshave.com or phone on 1800 500 088 today.
If you have leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma or a related blood disorder you can get information and get help from the Leukaemia Foundation. For information visit the website leukaemia.org.au or free call 1800 620 420
HELPING PEOPLE IN NEED IN SOUTH EAST ASIA
Apart from Australia, Dr Diamond has worked in South East Asia for the Australian Federal Government overseas aid program AusAID, which is now known as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
He was the regional manager for an HIV prevention program which was run in Cambodia, Lao, Vietnam, China and Burma.
In this program he worked with the health departments in each of these countries to implement health programs to prevent the transmission of HIV and worked with large international organisations to help get medicines into these countries to treat people who were infected with HIV.
“This was a very challenging, but also a very rewarding program to work in. Some of these countries are very poor and have very limited infrastructure and health programs resulting in poor access to doctors, medicine and treatment,” he says.
Some of the people in these countries that we worked with had never seen a doctor before or had to travel for days to come to see a doctor at the medical clinics.
Those with HIV were often marginalised by the community and had little to no support or access to HIV medicines.
“I was happy to work in a program which helped some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in these countries," he concludes.
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