Tim is Cancer Theme Leader with the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and Consultant Haematologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

What drives your passion to help people with blood cancer?

Blood cancers, if treated appropriately, potentially lead to a normal quality, normal duration of life. The stakes are so amazingly high so that increases the satisfaction of developing better therapies and the motivation to continue to make further improvements in all the blood cancers is very strong.

Why did you want to be part of the Taskforce?

I think the Blood Cancer Taskforce is going to have a big impact on the way we manage blood cancers over the next 20 to 30 years, so to be able to contribute to that is going to be a huge honour and a huge opportunity.

How do you think the Taskforce might improve the lives of people with a blood cancer?

I think the strength of the Blood Cancer Taskforce is that it is looking at the picture not from one, narrow perspective but from the broadest of perspectives, including how we communicate with patients, how we work together as clinicians to improve outcomes, how we improve our recruitment to trials. It’s looking at the broadest questions that we can possibly ask.