Bowel cancer may not be the first thing that springs to mind for your typical teenager but for a group of students from the St Leonard’s College, it was a desire to bring the school community together to champion a significant cause affecting thousands of Australians which saw them plan a week of activities culminating in a head shave.

Awareness is key to people understanding the urgency and critical need to develop more advanced treatments for bowel cancer.

As a scientist exploring the molecular basis of bowel cancer to develop more efficient treatment options, Dr Madara Ratnadiwakara is acutely aware of the importance of raising community awareness of bowel cancer. She explains, “Awareness is key to people understanding the urgency and critical need to develop more advanced treatments for bowel cancer.”

A memorial golf day was held in Adelaide in June 2018 to celebrate the memory of Carlo Bittoto who passed away from bowel cancer at the age of 53.

Jodie Reiger is all too familiar with bowel cancer having lost both her father Vince (at age 66) and her brother Nick (at age 32) to the disease.

“Due to our history, our entire family had genetic testing and found out that my family carries the cancer gene – I myself am gene positive,” says Jodie.

“My sister was only 44 when she was diagnosed with bowel cancer,” said John-Paul Jong.

Contradicting the myth that bowel cancer only affects older people, more than 2000 Australians under the age of 55 will be told they have the disease each year.