Jemima's wish: Researcher backed by Kiwi teen brings cancer drug to trial

Friday, 7 July 2023

The cancer research laboratory backed by late Wellington teenager Jemima Gazley is now trialling a treatment which hopes to extend the lives of children handed the same devastating diagnosis which ended her life at 15.

Jemima died in October 2021, nine months after being diagnosed with DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), an inoperable and terminal cancer.

Before she died, she crowdfunded more than $725,000 and donated brain tissue to an Australian research lab led by Professor Matt Dun - promising if she couldn’t be cured, she would be the cure.

For her father Oliver Gazley, the trial now under way -- the first ever available to New Zealand children with DIPG -- is proof she backed the right horse.

“Matt was an incredible support for us during the time of Jemima’s illness and she just knew straight away that if she was going to do this, she was going to help the people that helped us.

“Everything she did and all the money she raised has gone to getting kids on a trial… we know it’s not a cure. But it's a possibility to extend life and give kids a better life and live longer than Jemima got.”

At the moment, people diagnosed with DIPG die within a year. Jemima’s nine months is fairly typical.

Historically, the only recognised therapy has been radiation, which means “we’re always starting from scratch,” Matt Dun said.

But, with the help of researchers around the world, Dun has found a specific drug combination may have the ability to extend the lives of patients.

“We all hope for a cure, but we’re hoping we can extend the survival of patients by a meaningful amount,” Dun said. ”And if that’s the case it kind of gives us some of the blueprints we can exploit moving forward.

DIPG led to the death of Dun’s own daughter, Josie, in 2019 at the age of four. The paediatric oncology professor has been on a mission to find better treatment and ultimately a cure ever since through his work at the University of Newcastle.

For the trial, some patients receive a combination of radiation and one of the two drug therapies from the lab, then all patients receive the drug combination. He hopes to have some results by December.

Ideally, Dun would love to give people with DIPG the chance to travel the world with their families, for example, once they have a diagnosis.

The trial will include 240 people and is open to New Zealanders, Dun said.

The funding Jemima raised went towards a research robot, named the JEM-bot, which works to sort drug combinations.

These cells feed on expensive human protein, which the Gazleys continue to keep alive.

“It sounds weird, but we bought food for the live tumour cells,” Oliver Gazley said. “It’s Jemima’s cells so it was like, let’s feed these cells and keep them living.”

Dun stressed how grateful he was to the New Zealand community and the Gazleys for continuing to support the lab.

“We're a team. We’re joined by tragedy, but we're determined to make a difference for our girls.

“Fortunately your beautiful community is very generous and so is mine. There are some very good people in the world and we're lucky to know them.”

For more information and to donate, visit jemimaswish.com.