According to the Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia for Medical Research, 70 per cent of children now survived cancer diagnosis.
The CCIA for Medical Research today launched a two-month long fundraiser in Brisbane, with hopes of employing 80 new world-class researchers and raising $10 million to further improve childhood cancer survival rates.
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, himself a cancer survivor, officially launched the fundraiser and called on the community to support the institute, whose 100-odd scientists have been behind some groundbreaking discoveries since it was set up in 1976.
"It's one thing to be diagnosed with cancer when you're in your 40s or 50s, as I was, but it's an entirely different thing when somebody young is diagnosed with cancer," Mr Swan said.
"Those of us who've been diagnosed who've had a fair crack at life, you can be a little more philosophical about it but the raw injustice of a young person with all of their life ahead of them is something different all together."
CCIA executive chairman Joe Collins said death rates were still too high and the lifetime complications from treatment, including deafness and infertility, were devastating, he said.
"There is about 500 kids diagnosed with children's cancer every year in Australia and of those 500 we have about three kids dying of childhood cancer every single week," Mr Collins said.
"At the institute we believe that's not good enough.
"We have to do more, we have to keep the momentum for medical research going and we have to eventually solve that problem of those children dying."
He said the institute hoped that in the lifetime of a child born by 2020, there would be a cure for cancer.
Mr Regattieri said while Jake was in remission, the family lived on edge each time Jake felt unwell.
"(But) there are other kids out there in the community that are definitely worse off than Jake," he said.
"And if we can reach to them and tell them our story and just get it out there in the community and help the kids that's what it's all about."
