**** 2021 Tour de Rocks CANCELLED ****

Dear Tour de Rocks community,

It is with a heavy heart and a commitment to keep our riders and communities safe that the Board in conjunction with the Safety and Logistics committee and our Medical Experts have made the decision not to proceed with the 2021 ride in April.

This decision was not made lightly. With recent and continuing developments with community transmission of COVID-19, the logistics of compliance challenges and potential uncertainty over the next few months has led us to make this decision. Our organisation is committed to the safety and wellbeing of our riders, supporters, volunteers and the communities we visit and support. So, it was important that we gave due consideration to the practicalities and risks associated with delivering our unique event in the current environment.

The board also considered alternative activities but, no matter what those alternatives were, the same logistical compliance issues remain.

As with last years registrations, we are happy to retain your current registration for entry to the 2022 ride, have your registration recorded as a deposit to the charity, or provide a refund. The GoFundraise platform will be closed. You will shortly receive an email with instructions on how  to let us know what you would like to do with your current registration.

We are in the fortunate position to have money to appropriate in the 2021 year. We will update you soon on those organisations we are able to support with those fundraising efforts.

We encourage you to keep riding, spreading the good work of Tour de Rocks and hope that you can get your team together to organise a social ride (in a COVID safe environment of course!) and donate a few dollars to Tour de Rocks. Send us a photo and some information and we can share it on our socials!

On behalf of the Tour de Rocks board, I thank everyone for their continued support and understanding, thank you for being part of this incredible event and WE WILL BE BACK in 2022.

Kind regards

Kay Endres

Chair, Tour de Rocks

** $50,000 RESEARCH PROJECT GRANT **
 CHILDREN'S CANCER INSTITUTE

On Friday 17th October, Tour de Rocks handed over a $50,000 cheque for a Research Grant for Immune Profiling and Immunotherapy for High-Risk Paediatric Sarcomas. In conjunction with Optus and Tour de Cure we are proud to be associated with this Project.

The project aims to improve the treatment of children’s high-risk sarcomas. 

Sarcomas are a group of connective tissue tumours and can arise anywhere in the body, including bone or soft tissue, and account for about 10% of childhood cancers. This exciting new therapy will stimulate the patient’s own immune system to kill cancer cells using immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Kay Endres said "It is an honour to be able to present this cheque, on behalf of everyone involved in Tour de Rocks, for this Research Project. We are hopeful that the research that this funds, will help find a cure for Childrens Cancer. Despite not being able to ride this year, due to COVID 19, the research still goes on. We won't stop until a cure is found."

David Boundy, John Sewell and Scott Fittler (who were also part of the presentation) added "This is a very special day to be part of this presentation. Our focus now turns to the 2021 Ride and continuing to raise more funds for cancer research. So, if you haven't registered yet for the 2021 ride, ACT NOW. You don't want to miss out on what will be a very special event."

Here is a bit more about Dr Rachael Terry's Research Project : Immune Profiling and Immunotherapy for High-Risk Paediatric Sarcomas.

Children with high-risk sarcomas urgently need effective and targeted treatments. Aggressive chemotherapy is often the only option and <30% of children survive. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are exciting new immunotherapies that produce remarkable responses in adult cancers. Early promising results have been seen in paediatric sarcomas; however, it is challenging to predict which patients will respond to treatment. 

Recent studies indicate that ICIs are particularly effective in immune-inflamed “hot” tumours. However, there is very limited data to indicate which subsets of sarcomas are inflamed. Non-inflamed “cold” sarcomas may also benefit from ICI treatment if combined with other therapies that boost the anti-tumour immune response. However, this approach has not been explored. Here, we take advantage of our unprecedented access to a unique cohort of sarcoma patients, through our leadership of ZERO Childhood Cancer - the first personalised medicine initiative for high-risk paediatric cancers in Australia.