NZ Farmer Made Funeral PowerPoint, Now Cancer-Free

When Peter Jefferies walked into Greymouth Hospital with unexplained chest pain in August 2021, doctors discovered a football-sized tumor in his abdomen. The 61-year-old farmer and former police officer had never spent a night in hospital, but now faced a terminal diagnosis of fast-growing lymphoma.

Chemotherapy couldn't stop his cancer. A planned stem-cell transplant was abandoned when scans showed the tumor hadn't budged. Radiation would damage vital organs, and his specialist delivered devastating news: there were no options left.

But then came five words that changed everything: "There is this trial in Wellington."

Scientists at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research had developed New Zealand's own CAR T-cell therapy, a revolutionary treatment that transforms a patient's immune cells into cancer killers. Jefferies qualified for the phase 1 trial, designed for 30 lymphoma patients who had run out of options.

The process sounds like science fiction. Doctors collected Jefferies' T cells through a four-hour blood filtering process. Scientists spent five weeks genetically modifying those cells to recognize and destroy his cancer, then multiplied them by the millions.

After surgery to remove his tumor and spleen, Jefferies returned to Wellington Hospital in July 2022. Nurses infused less than 2 milliliters of his modified cells back into his bloodstream in about one minute.

"One of the most expensive things on the planet, weight-wise," he recalls.

While waiting to see if the treatment would work, Jefferies had made peace with death. He created a PowerPoint presentation for his funeral, scrolling through photos of his life in the country near Blackball on the South Island's West Coast. He has two adult children and lives with his partner Leanne.

Three months after receiving his altered cells, Jefferies returned for a PET scan. The results showed no trace of cancer anywhere in his body.

Why This Inspires

Jefferies' story represents more than one man's survival. The Wellington trial could bring this lifesaving treatment into New Zealand's public health system by 2027, offering hope to future patients who currently have no access to CAR T therapy here.

The treatment has become standard care for certain blood cancers in Australia and overseas, but hasn't been available privately or publicly in New Zealand until this trial. Scientists at the nonprofit Malaghan Institute proved they could manufacture the complex therapy locally, potentially saving countless lives.

Jefferies never expected to need that funeral PowerPoint. "I just felt it was going to work," he says now, cancer-free and back to his life in the West Coast countryside.

Sometimes the most powerful presentation is the one you never have to give.