Professor Nikolai Petrovsky says his cancer vaccine trial is under threat of lab being shut down

Australians dying of cancer are begging authorities not to shut down a lab running a cutting-edge trial of a vaccine that has shown promise in prolonging their lives.

Terminally ill Australians pinning their hopes on a cancer vaccine that uses a sample of their own tumour to fight their disease are terrified the cutting-edge trial is about to be shut down.

Men, women and children with various types of stage-four cancers are pleading with authorities to allow Professor Nikolai Petrovsky and his medical team to continue producing and trialling the tailor-made vaccines out of his lab in Adelaide.

Prof Petrovsky’s Vaxine Pty Ltd faces eviction by a government health network from the premises it occupies at a medical centre.

One participant from Western Australia, who has been told three times to prepare to die since his diagnosis in January last year, believes the vaccine is keeping him alive.

The tumours on Dharma McDonald’s lungs, hips, pelvis, shoulder and four brain tumours are gone and another tumour remains inactive, his partner Lizeth Castellanos told News Corp this week. He has regained the 20kg he lost, no longer needs a feeding tube and is out of his ­wheelchair.

 

“I believe we are witnessing a breakthrough in the treatment of cancer,” Lizeth said.

“If we allow the research to be stopped now, we are preventing humanity from advancing in the way we treat cancer.”

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky says he has been told he will be locked out of his lab. Picture: Matt Turner

Prof Petrovsky, who developed the first pandemic swine flu vaccine in the world in 2009, and in 2019 the world’s first vaccine developed with artificial intelligence, says the Autologous Tumour Vaccine Trial could revolutionise the way cancer is treated, and be available to patients in the next couple of years.

“Every patient on the trial gets a different vaccine specifically for their cancer,” Professor Petrovsky told the Saturday Telegraph.

“It’s a bit like tailor-made compared to off-the-rack clothing, we specifically make the vaccine for each individual patient.

“This is the cutting edge of where cancer treatment is going in the future.

“This will eventually be how every person with cancer is treated.

“The idea of giving patients toxic chemotherapy at the same dose for everyone, is ­outdated.”

 

While the trial is almost at the completion stage of the first of three phases, Prof Petrovsky said the fact there were no side effects recorded and no other treatment options for the cancers being treated meant the vaccine could potentially go straight to market after a phase two trial — meaning it could take one to two years to be available, rather than the standard 10 years for a new drug.

“There are already 11 people under treatment from all over Australia, including NSW, Queensland and Victoria, and even a few from overseas and another 20 or so in various stages of working out logistics of ­enrolling in the study,” he said.

“This is ­complicated by the fact that the patients need to have surgery to obtain some of their cancer from which the vaccine is made.”

 

Prof Petrovsky’s company Vaxine Pty Ltd funds the trial and has volunteer medical experts working on the project.

“We did have 16 staff, however many have resigned because of all of this pressure and we are now down to just a few people,” he said.

“The remarkable thing is that many patients in the trial have not seen their cancer ­advance since starting the vaccine — they just don’t get worse. We saw the same ­phenomena in dogs we ­treated.”

“One participant in WA really has a miraculous response.

“He had a brain melanoma metastasis, with cancer in his lung as well.

“He was at the end of the line and he went on the vaccine and he is now almost a year down the track and doing exceptionally well.

“Here is a real person a year after being told he had a few months, out of his wheelchair, doing yoga.”

Prof Petrovsky was the first researcher in Australia to trial a Covid-19 vaccine in humans. Picture: Morgan Sette

Professor Petrovsky — who has more than 250 published peer-reviewed papers and received $50m in research grants from Australian and US government sources — is furious his company Vaxine Pty Ltd has been threatened with eviction from the premises it occupies at a medical centre.

“They are not giving a reason, just that we are not a good fit, we have outstayed our welcome in SA,” he said.

A group of trial participants has written to the South Australian Health Minister, and the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network (SALHN) who want to evict Vaxine Pty Ltd from the premises it ­occupies at the Flinders Medical Centre.

A full hearing will take place before the South Australian Employment Tribunal next week over whether Prof Petrovsky can still have access to his lab beyond Friday.

“They wanted to change the locks on my labs at Flinders on Wednesday night, but just a few hours before the deadline the judge gave us orders that they couldn’t prevent us from accessing our labs and offices before a full hearing next Friday,” Prof Petrovsky said.

Prof Petrovsky is also known for his strong public comments against prolonged lockdowns and Covid vaccine mandates.

“I’ve been vocal as an expert on scientific matters relating to the pandemic,” he said.

“The concept of academic freedom seems to have been lost from many Australian universities today.

Scott Farnell says he is running out of options for fighting his stage-four cancer. Picture: Danielle Smith

“They just don’t like the idea that as academics we like to think and ask challenging questions.

“Sometimes those questions are not comfortable.

“You’re meant to just accept it and hide away in a corner.

“Unfortunately I have a strong voice and a lot of ­followers and they just don’t like this.”

Southern Adelaide Local Health Network said in a statement that Vaxine Pty Ltd is a private biotechnology company and is responsible for any participants in its clinical trials.

“While we are very concerned to hear of the plight of the participants, as there are ongoing court proceedings between SALHN and Vaxine, we are unable to provide any comment in relation to the matter,” the statement read.

Prof Petrovsky is now a professor with the Australian Respiratory and Sleep Medicine Institute and a ­professor with the Institute of Molecular Medicine in ­California.

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