15/05/2025
The club has outside speakers at the monthly meetings which are on the 4th Thursday of the month.
A very interesting recent subject was as follows.
The Malaghan Institute is doing a diverse range of medical immunology research. In April our club was treated to an extremely interesting presentation by the Institute (speakers Georgia Ardill-Walker and Dr Nathaniel Dasyam) on cutting edge cancer immunology research (CAR T-cell therapy) being conducted right on our doorstep (here in Wellington).
CAR T-cell therapy stands for Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy. This is a one-off treatment, which works by redirecting a patient’s own immune cells (T-cells) in the laboratory, to directly identify and attack cancer cells. These modified T-cells are then returned to the patient where they can attack and destroy cancer cells. CAR T-cells have the potential to act as ‘living drugs’, providing long-term protection against relapse - and without the sometime very nasty side effects of chemo or radiology cancer treatments.
