Morgan Mansell passed away from melanoma at the age of just 25 years young in 2018. Throughout the last five years of her short life, Morgan had been heavily involved in supporting others who were struggling with health issues.

In memory of Morgan, amazing parents, Julie and Peter Mansell, are now tackling melanoma head on! In addition to the Check4Spot Day, they have established the Morgan Mansell Award. The Morgan Mansell Award is awarded to a young researcher each year to the most outstanding research project that could ultimately lead to a cure for melanoma. Over the next month, MSCAN will showcase the three finalists for the 2023 Morgan Mansell Prize.

Our beautiful daughter Morgan was especially active in the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) world, whether it be volunteering at the MS op shop, supporting numerous MS fundraisers and fun-runs, or being a guest speaker at MS events. And throughout all these health issues, she had started writing a blog at dontmswithmorgs.com (a clever play on words). Her blog and social media started to make quite an impact around the world, and especially amongst the large number of followers, who were suffering from similar health issues. The humour and the manner by which she would make light of her situation, gave great hope and positivity to those she was communicating with.

The blog is still up there and we have tried to continue her work by keeping it relevant and up to date. Typical of the many tributes were:

• “I dug her style. She was a support and helped me understand how to deal with my illness by showing how she processed things. She wasn’t a sad-sack about her illness, and you could tell that even though things were very serious and painful – she didn’t make it a big part of her posts; and when she was having a bad day she just would acknowledge that it was bad but keep looking forward to a better day. Morgan was a fabulous gal with the best spirit that really helped me keep going so I’m gonna keep going.” Damian Washington (an actor in the USA).
• “To meet Morgan was to be friends with her. She was a magnetic force, drawing people to her like moths to a flame with her genuine warmth, quick wit and wisdom beyond her years. I was lucky enough to meet Morgan at work and while I was almost 20 years her senior, we formed a strong bond very quickly. I learnt so much from her, not only about the nuances of social media, or the latest song I had to listen to, but about resilience, compassion and not taking anything for granted”. Jacqui Hilton

Before we lost our beautiful girl, Morgan had asked for some of her money to be donated towards research. This has inspired us to continue her fight, and so ever since, we have tried to honour her wishes by not only trying to raise awareness of the dangers of melanoma by starting what we call Check4Spots Day; but we also started the Morgan Mansell Fund to raise funds for research.

The Morgan Mansell Fund is managed and strictly governed by the Australian Community Foundation – a not-for-profit charity established to assist with philanthropy, and all donations to the fund are fully tax deductible. This has provided a great means by which funds for research can be legitimately raised whilst at the same time keeping the name of our beautiful girl alive.

As of January 2024, the fund has granted out over $60,000 to melanoma research (mainly to The Alfred and Peter Mac Hospitals, as well as the Melanoma Institute of Australia).

Typical of the research that the Morgan Mansell Fund supports is that which is being undertaken at The Alfred Hospital. Under the guidance of their Director of Oncology, Professor Mark Shackleton, the money is being used to support the Melanocyte Stem Cell Project and to test whether different types of skin melanocytes can equally turn into melanomas under the same melanoma-causing conditions; and whether inhibiting melanoma-prone subtypes of melanocytes (for example with pharmaceuticals that could be incorporated into sunscreens) could prevent melanoma formation.

The Morgan Mansell Prize (Young Melanoma Researcher of the Year) is a prize initiated by Melanoma Research Victoria and awarded annually for the most outstanding research project for a cure for melanoma.

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