David Downs

David has been such an inspiration to anyone who has been reading his posts throughout the year. Let's help him get the treatment he needs.

The treatment is called CAR-T therapy, where the CAR bit stands for 'Chimeric Antigen Receptors', and the T bit refers to the T-cells in the blood, the so called 'killer cells'. These new CAR-T cells are basically genetically modified killer cells. The treatment involves making millions of them and reinjecting them into me to fight the cancer. The issue with cancer is that the body's normal defences (the T cells and B cells) don't notice the cancer cells, so they are free to multiply at will. It's as if the cancer cells were wandering around in disguise, like Captain Kirk in Episode 21 of the first season of Star Trek.

The CAR-T thing lets the T cells see through the bad makeup and poorly done prosthetics to spot the cancer cells, and then they can attack the tumour, and any other bad cells, as they would any other foreign invader.

Like Star Trek, it all sounds very futuristic and advanced – which of course it is. It's treatment that has been in development for a year or two, but which has literally only been publicly available for a few weeks, and only in the US. And only if you have a squazillion dollars. So, a few problems to be surmounted.

If you need to know more detail, then read David's latest post athttps://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/inspire-me/98629313/a-mild-touch-of-the-cancer-its-now-cancer-wars-3--return-of-the-tumour