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2024
In 2024 the WANTZ Committee was involved in two philanthropic activities.
1. The first was the BestLife Foundation and its project, Helena’s House.
2. The second was a collaboration with Dr Maurie Stevens in conjunction with the 1977 UQ Medical graduates who were turning 70+, to fundraise to purchase an amazing machine for the University of Queensland Centre of Clinical Research.
1. BESTLIFE FOUNDATION
BestLife builds capacity and friendship for young people with profound disability to move to supported independent living.
Clients start with single night sleepovers, progress to 3 night ‘housemates’ stays and ultimately progress to supported independent living.
One of their support workers (Helena), started working with them when she was doing a science year as a step to medicine.
She changed her degree to OT to work with people with profound disability as a result of working with BestLife and then died suddenly at the age of 19 from a pulmonary embolus.Helena’s House has been named in her honour.
BestLife has now raised the money for the land and house and building is soon to commence. The dream is now being realised; a group of friends, teenagers and young adults living with disability, regularly sharing a house for a few days or a week, supported by qualified people who know and understand them in a home that is welcoming, accessible, safe and fun.
Specifically, the WANTZ Committee was fundraising to purchase a vertical platform wheelchair lift, ensuring that no child or young person in their care is excluded from accessing the back lawn and garden where vegetable gardens will be planted and a chicken shed erected. The estimated cost was $9,379.
AMOUNT FUNDRAISED: $9,500.00
2. PROSTATE THERANOUSTICS AND UROLOGICAL DISEASES GROUP
The Prostate Theranostics and Urological Diseases group led by Associate Professor Dr Matthew Roberts, Consultant Urologist and Robotic Surgeon, aims to improve diagnosis, treatment and understanding of prostate cancer.
We had been requested to fundraise for a specific item of equipment, a Digital qPCR System for gene detection. This is a fast and comprehensive system with results in 2 hours, costing approximately $100,000. In essence, this system identifies prostate cancer cells from a blood test enabling early cancer detection, monitoring of treatment response, and identification of genetic mutations for targeted therapies.
Dr Kevin Koo, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, UQ Centre for Clinical Research had advised further:
"The Digital PCR is a modern evolution of standard qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) technology that is used for measuring DNA/RNA disease targets. Digital PCR is an improvement because it is highly sensitive and allows exact counting of the disease targets. For prostate cancer, digital PCR’s excellent sensitivity will be very useful for monitoring disease progression or recurrence as it can detect trace copies of prostate cancer targets after initial therapy. This allows for earlier timely clinical treatment action to be taken for patient benefit. At UQCCR (UQ Centre for Clinical Research) we hope to use digital PCR to develop and validate a prostate cancer target panel for disease monitoring applications."
Our Gala Black Tie dinner was held on Saturday 31st August at Customs House.
ADDRESS:
Long Room
Custome House
399 Queen Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
AMOUNT FUNDRAISED: $147,204.83
Thank you to everyone who attended the night and supported the event. A huge thank you to all our sponsors and donors for the night, without whose very generous support this would not have been possible.
LINKS:
Donations Reply Slip
Visit our Facebook Page
BestLife Foundation
Customs House
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