“An incredible day”: Carrie Bickmore's huge announcement
Project host and brain cancer awareness advocate Carrie Bickmore has announced the launch of The Brain Cancer Centre, a new facility dedicated to treating the cancer that her husband was diagnosed with in 2010.
Bickmore made the emotional announcement on Monday’s episode of The Project, after a segment about an eight-year-old undergoing treatment for brain cancer.
The television host said that the new facility was started in a partnership between Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI).
Bickmore said she was “so proud” to be working with WEHI, a “world-renowned research institute that has been making discoveries for 100 years”.
.@BickmoreCarrie is launching The Brain Cancer Centre, founded by Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer in partnership with Walter and Eliza Hall. Premier Dan Andrews joins us for the announcement.#TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/VGScjPVfjy
— The Project (@theprojecttv) October 25, 2021
“Around 3,000 people have passed away from brain cancer in just the past two years,” 40-year-old Bickmore said, noting that “cancer diagnoses haven’t stopped while our focus has been on Covid”.
“Survival rates haven’t changed in 30 years which is just unacceptable and that’s why I, along with many other brilliant advocates around the country, have been on a mission to raise as much money as possible to give brain cancer patients hope.”
The sales from Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer have resulted in $40 million of funding for the Brain Cancer Centre, with the Victorian Government also committing $16 million towards the centre.
Bickmore (centre) alongside the scientific leaders of the Brain Cancer Centre. Image: @bickmorecarrie / Instagram
“This is a collaborative centre, it’s a collaborative initiative, and we hope to end brain cancer as a terminal illness,” Bickmore said.
“It’s such a great vision,” co-host Waleed Aly said.
“Absolutely. It’s such an incredible day for our foundation,” Bickmore replied.
The centre’s very first project is already in the works with funding from the state government.
“It’s a new model for brain cancer clinical trials that will provide hope for more Victorian patients,” Bickmore explained.
The TV star has been candid about her experience with brain cancer, having lost her husband Greg Lange to the disease in 2010.
“I want to see a world where no-one has to lose their life or lose the life of someone they love to brain cancer,” she said in an announcement video on Instagram, ‘“six years after donning this beanie at the Logies”.
In 2015, Bickmore famously donned a blue beanie while accepting the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian television, and gave a speech about raising awareness for the disease.
Bickmore posing with the beanie she wore while accepting her Logie Award. Image: Getty Images
“Everyone thinks it’s this rare form of cancer, it’s not,” she said during her speech.
“It kills more people under forty (than any other cancer) - and that’s a lot of you in this room.
“In 2010, my husband Greg was one of the unlucky ones. And after a long, long, long battle he died from brain cancer.”
Bickmore shares her son Ollie with her late husband, as well as two daughters with her new partner, Chris Walker.
Image: @theprojecttv / Twitter