This year’s Walk will take place on Sunday September 22^nd at the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Center.

The Ottawa-Gatineau Multiple Myeloma Steps to a Cure Walk is organized by members of the Ottawa- Gatineau Myeloma Community Network and other volunteers. The vision of the Network is to improve the quality of life for those affected by multiple myeloma and its mission is to provide support for those affected by multiple myeloma in the Ottawa-Gatineau Region through awareness, education, advocacy and supporting research.

The goals for our Walk are to bring the myeloma community together: patients, caregivers, family, friends, researchers and clinicians; to increase awareness of the disease; and ,to raise funds to support research activities, both locally and nationally to improve patient care and outcomes.

Myeloma Canada is our national partner in the Walk, and receives half of the funds raised to help support their range of research activities (including the Myeloma Canada Research Network). In recent years, the Ottawa Hospital Foundation has received the other half which has benefitted Dr. McCurdy’s myeloma research activities.

This year locally we hope to support the expansion of the Ottawa General Hospital’s Car-T program to treat patients with multiple myeloma. Car-T therapy is an exciting new immune treatment for patients with blood cancers, that has the potential to treat even solid tumor cancers eventually. The treatment is currently being used for patients with lymphoma and leukemia. Dr. McCurdy’s group working with Dr. Natasha Kekre expect to be able to treat patients with myeloma in CAR-T clinical trials as early as the summer.

We are looking for volunteers to help organize this year’s event!

Please contact Frank Shepherd, Robin Sully, Gilles Caron or Glen Hussey if you are interested in helping.

For more information on the Ottawa –Gatineau Community Network please contact:

Robin Sully at 613 622 5461; maplecrest2553@explornet.ca or

Jean Shepherd at 613 277 4886; jean.shepherd@rogers.com