We’re thrilled to announce that Dr Daniel Verdon, from the University of Auckland, has been awarded funding through the Melanoma New Zealand Research Fund.
This fund was created to support innovative, high-impact research aimed at improving melanoma outcomes and enhancing patient experiences across Aotearoa.
Daniel’s project, “Clinical-Grade Development of Personalised T-Cell Immunotherapy for Melanoma,” has been in development for the last eight years and with the support of Melanoma New Zealand funding, it will now progress into its next phase to develop a personalised T-cell therapy for a melanoma patient in New Zealand. This novel approach is designed to tailor treatment to the individual patient using their own unique immune cells that are grown from the patient’s blood. When infused back into the patient, the cells have the potential to attack cancer cells. If successful, Daniel hopes to bring on board more patients to undergo this treatment and is working with clinical leaders to understand how this could eventually be administered in a clinical environment. Importantly, this will be the first therapy of its kind developed for use in New Zealand, marking a significant step forward in personalised cancer care.
Daniel has always been fascinated by the immune system. The field of cancer immunology was exploding during Daniel’s postgraduate studies – it became a tipping point in research which led to his interest in autologous T-cell therapies for cancer. Being surrounded by this cutting-edge research inspired and motivated him to later develop this project
We look forward to sharing more about Daniel’s fascinating research soon.