Li Ka Shing, the richest man in Hong Kong, gives $ 4.5 million to a Sydney cancer trial

"I left a very upset surgeon, all rubbed in his greens [scrubs] and ready to go, "said Biddle.

"It turns out that it's the only thing they could offer to someone like me, other than going home and putting my affairs in order."

Knowing that your cancer could reappear at any time is a constant companion.

"When you're diagnosed with cancer like this, you're in shock. You do not know what to do or where to go. This is a terrible situation, "he said.

A first immunotherapy study in the world aims to reprogram immune cells to hunt and destroy deadly tumors in patients with mesothelioma and advanced pancreatic cancer.

Experimental therapy has the potential to treat dozens of types of cancers, including cancers of the lung, ovary and some bad cancers, by targeting a specific protein on the surface of tumor cells.

The project is led by Professor John Rasko, expert in gene therapy and clinical hematologist, at the Li Ka Shing cell and genius therapy initiative of the University of Sydney.

Li Ka Shing Foundation – the philanthropic organization of Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Hong Kong – donated $ 4.5 million to the University to expand the essay beyond the pancreatic cancer to include patients with mesothelin-bearing cancer, mainly mesothelioma.

Mr. Li is the former head of Hong Kong's largest infrastructure company, Cheung Kong Industries (CKI), now headed by his son. Earlier this month, the Morrison government had blocked CKI's $ 13 million buyout bid on the Australian APA pipeline group.

The Foundation's donation will also create a gene therapy workforce and provide the infrastructure for the development and manufacture of immunotherapies in Australia.

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"There is only one word for that," Biddle said. "Hope."

"If there was hope for a treatment that could eventually cure these types of cancers, it would be an incredible result," he said.

Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of all major cancers, with 8.7% of patients surviving five years after diagnosis. Nearly 3,000 Australians die every year of pancreatic cancer. It is notoriously difficult to detect and is usually diagnosed only when it has spread.

In 2016, 672 Australians died of mesothelioma.

Early immunotherapy drugs aim to "curb" the body's immune response to cancer by reviving white blood cells, called T cells. But many patients do not respond to treatments.

The new study adopts a different tact, focusing on patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma who possess a specific marker – a protein on the surface of their cancer cells called mesothelin.

The researchers will extract the T cells from these patients and genetically reprogram these immune cells to create on their surface receptors of chimeric antigens (CAR T cells) that are attracted to mesothelin.

The reprogrammed immune cells will be reinjected into patients where they multiply, stalk and destroy the cancer cells, according to the researchers.

"Just inject a small amount of [CAR-T] cells; the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen – but these cells are able to proliferate and grow in the body – like normal immune cells – and are capable of killing tens of thousands of cancer cells sequentially Said Professor Rasko.

"It's terribly, very exciting," said Professor Rasko. "It does not matter, it's the cutting edge."

CAR-T immunotherapy has been approved as a treatment in Europe for specific types of leukemia and lymphoma, but it is the first in Australia to target solid tumors.

Mesothelin is present on the surface of 85% of pancreatic cancers and 90% of mesotheliomas.

The protein is also detectable in about a dozen other cancers, including lung, ovarian and connective tissue cancers, as well as about 10 to 15% of bad cancers, said Professor Rasko.

"This technique is agnostic for cancer," said Professor Rasko.

"What connects all these cancers is that they express a particular protein on the surface of the tumor that we can target with reprogrammed immune cells."

Australian researchers will collaborate with American, Canadian and Swedish researchers.

"We are in an exciting situation to be able to offer this to patients in the coming year," said Professor Rasko, stressing that it was still an experimental treatment.