Cell warfare
It took just one minute for Peter Jefferies to be infused with a CAR T-cell treatment that saved his life. On August 22, 2022, the now 60-year-old lay in a bed at Wellington Hospital and was given a single shot of his own genetically modified immune cells to fight his deadly lymphoma B.
It was liquid gold for the West Coast police officer, who had endured five rounds of aggressive chemotherapy and was facing palliative care. Without CAR T-cell treatment, his haematologist told him he would die.
Jefferies is one of 16 patients out of 30 who were successfully treated in the first stage of the CAR T-cell therapy trial being run by the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington. Others who have publicly shared their stories include Auckland poet Michele Leggott (Listener, April 15, 2023) and Kirsty Horgan of Christchurch.
All those in the clinical trial have been diagnosed terminally ill and have exhausted conventional options to fight non-Hodgkin lymphoma B - a type of blood cancer. Stage II of the trial is now under way, with 60 patients being recruited, and results are expected by mid-2026.
CART (chimeric antigen receptor T cell) immunotherapy is a highly specialised treatment in which a patient's own immune system cells are extracted and modified in the laboratory to recognise and attack cancer cells when injected back into the body.
Points of difference for the WZTL-002 drug Malaghan is trialling include that it is a one-shot dose and has a better safety profile, with fewer side effects, than Car T-cell therapies available overseas.
In an exciting development for lymphoma B patients here, the trial is this month extending to hospitals in Christchurch and Auckland, making the treatment more accessible to qualifying patients around the country.
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Denne historien er fra March 1-7, 2025-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.
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A hint of mermaids
Erin Palmisano's latest novel once again has food and romance at the heart of its well-plotted story.
Execution over innovation
Big and bold ideas are fine, but being the best beats being first.
Something's wrong with all of them
Engaging dissection of the 20th-century novel likely to send the reader in search for the book under discussion.
The virus that stole all the smells
In this edited extract from The Forgotten Sense, Jonas Olofsson traces the rise in anosmia as a result of Covid-19 infections.
When caring is ‘woke'
Some years ago, I sat in a small plane circling over Punta del Este in Uruguay. There was a delay and we sat in tense silence until we began our descent. Outside the tiny airport, a taxi ferried us past private Lear jets; these had been the cause of the hold-up. The driver pointed to two planes side by side. \"This one is a Trump plane.\"
Getting along swimmingly
The presenters of Endangered Species Aotearoa spend a fair bit of time on and in the water in the second season.
That clingy feeling
Our pets display the same types of attachment behaviours as we do, or so it seems.
The famous furred
A peaceful little spot in LA is the final resting place for the pets of some of Hollywood's biggest names.
Gone girl
She wandered in on Thursday morning looking very wan, and climbed into her bed. I sat on the edge and stroked her back.
