Working every day towards a cure for cancer

Working every day towards a cure for cancer – 4 February World Cancer Day

Tomorrow is World Cancer Day but cancer research staff at the Malaghan Institute are motivated every day to further international cancer research – here in Wellington – and bring better treatments or cures to New Zealanders facing a cancer diagnosis.

Director Graham Le Gros says, “Researchers know more about cancer – there over 200 types of cancer – this century, than was known in all previous centuries. While rates of diagnosis have risen, improvements in treatments mean most people are living longer. There is genuine excitement that cancer immunotherapy, using the patient’s own immune system to fight off the disease, will deliver a substantial and positive upswing in survival rates over the next decade. It will be a powerful addition to current treatment options.”

Immunotherapy and cancer have become increasingly used in the public domain since the journal Science named cancer immunotherapy its 2013 Breakthrough of the Year, but a body of academic work, over several decades, led to this public ‘tipping point’.

Professor Le Gros continues, “Our cancer research programmes are investigating the applications of vaccines to stimulate an immune response. These vaccines differ from the ones most people are familiar with, preventing a disease such as measles from starting. Therapeutic vaccines, teach the immune system to recognise a disease you already have, but stimulate a stronger fight back.”

“While we do not have good news per se for a person battling cancer on 4 February, we keep our aim to bring good news in the future, front and centre – all of us have been touched by cancer. We hope to contribute significantly to New Zealand’s health sector which badly needs medical breakthroughs to combat cancers and other immune related diseases and to counter the costs associated with an aging population.”

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