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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda gam Nation.

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Speaker 2: Professor Richard Skolier has dedicated years to groundbreaking research transforming

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Speaker 2: the most advanced forms of melanoma into a largely curable disease,

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Speaker 2: helping millions. What makes this story so remarkable is his

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Speaker 2: first hand experience with his incurable brain cancer. His diagnosis

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Speaker 2: has forced him to undertake a world first experimental treatment.

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Speaker 2: He's written a new book called Brain Brainstorm. I've just

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Speaker 2: finished reading it. It is extraordinary. Richard.

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Speaker 1: Hello, Hey, a man, you'd great to talk here. I'm Brandon.

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Speaker 3: Good to see you again, Richard, look at you go ha.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but yeah, I'm delight at

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Speaker 1: the Silvie year and doing pretty well. So yeah, all

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Speaker 1: good on my track.

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Speaker 2: What an incredible story. And you've been so open about

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Speaker 2: the emotional journey you've been on as well as the

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Speaker 2: physical journey. For those that aren't aware of your story,

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Speaker 2: you are using immunology. Oh, actually I should let you

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Speaker 2: tell it. But tell us about the science behind what

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Speaker 2: you're doing for your brain cancer.

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Speaker 1: Well, I guess, as you mentioned, we've made some great

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Speaker 1: advances in melanima maloma. If you get it early, most

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Speaker 1: people will be cured. But once it's spread distant sites,

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Speaker 1: which occurs in about five percent of patients a decade

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Speaker 1: or a little bit more ago, Basically there's nothing we

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Speaker 1: could do and most people would be dead within the year.

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Speaker 1: Five years, survival rates was less than five percent, but

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Speaker 1: because of groundbreaking work and clinical trials led by my

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Speaker 1: friend and colleague, Professor Georgina, along the five year survival

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Speaker 1: rates now about fifty seven percent. So great discoveries have

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Speaker 1: been made which have changed the field, not just in melanoma,

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Speaker 1: but in many other cancers now. And it had to

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Speaker 1: be diagnosed with supposedly incurable cancer which treatment hasn't changed

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Speaker 1: in twenty years didn't sit right with me, and Georgina

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Speaker 1: pull on the table, do you want to give it

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Speaker 1: a crack with some of the discoveries that we've made

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Speaker 1: in melanima, to see if we can make a difference here.

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Speaker 1: So from my perspective, it was no brainer to leaked

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Speaker 1: in and see if we could make a difference here too.

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Speaker 3: And might it happened for you when your diagnosis happened,

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Speaker 3: because you're you deal in this field all the time.

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Speaker 3: So I often wonder that about surgeons and the like

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Speaker 3: they think, does that always play on your mind, this

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Speaker 3: could happen to me? Or is it something that's out

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Speaker 3: of your mind you think it is having to other people.

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Speaker 1: No, I think realistically, you get about your life and

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Speaker 1: the odds are that you won't pick something up. I

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Speaker 1: guess you want to enjoy your life and make the

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Speaker 1: most of it. But and obviously my job as a

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Speaker 1: pathologist to make diagnosis of cancer. So you know, you

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Speaker 1: feel for the people in which it's occurred. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a different journey when you become the patient.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's been amazing that this kind of immunology hasn't

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Speaker 2: been used before really for brain cancer. As you say,

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Speaker 2: the results haven't changed, the treatment hasn't changed in so

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Speaker 2: many years. You are now over a year cancer free

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Speaker 2: in your brain. How unusual is that?

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Speaker 1: Well, the average survival for the subtype of brain cancer

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Speaker 1: I've got my age will be twelve months and the

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Speaker 1: usual time to recurrence six months. To go down this

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Speaker 1: path of using immunotherapy to stimulate the immune system to

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Speaker 1: try and fight the cancer, that it's more likely to

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Speaker 1: work from my perspective if I didn't take chemotherapy. So

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Speaker 1: basically the chance of it recurring and my salival rate

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Speaker 1: drops in half, so your average survival will be six months.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that I'm still here and functioning well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: is you know. I'm absolutely thrilled and delighted about it.

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Speaker 1: But the problem is that one patient doesn't mean anything

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Speaker 1: as far as the treatment goes. What we need is

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Speaker 1: a clinical trial to see if it's just luck that

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Speaker 1: I'm still here or whether the treatment is having an effect.

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Speaker 1: We've generated some science using the work that we've paneered

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Speaker 1: in melanioma to see if there's some scientific evidence to

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Speaker 1: suggest that this is a path that's worth going down

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Speaker 1: to test in a clinical trial, and there is some

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Speaker 1: promising data which we hope will be published very soon.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it is a path worth exploring. But bottom

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Speaker 1: line is, we don't know if it's luck for me

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Speaker 1: or it's the treatment that's made a difference. We need

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Speaker 1: a clinical trial, and I know people are working very

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Speaker 1: very hard to try and get this over the line,

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Speaker 1: and it takes some time to get a clinical trial

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Speaker 1: up and running, but hopefully it will start and they're

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Speaker 1: not to distant future. Next year.

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Speaker 3: King Charles was just in town and I noticed you

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Speaker 3: were there. You had to chat to him and then

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Speaker 3: and then there was a moment I was watching you

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Speaker 3: on the telly. I don't know if you're aware of this,

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Speaker 3: and you sort of turned away from King Charles and

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Speaker 3: you were straight onto the microscope. You were just like

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Speaker 3: really focused on what you were doing. It was almost

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Speaker 3: like I just stand by there, King, I've got some

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Speaker 3: stuff to do.

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Speaker 1: Well. To be honest, what I was showing him that,

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Speaker 1: you know, melanima, if you see something new or changing

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Speaker 1: in you on your skin, you should go and get

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Speaker 1: it checked out and hopefully you pick up melom early

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Speaker 1: and most people will be cured once it's excided. But

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Speaker 1: for the poor patient that I was showing him, it

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Speaker 1: was more advanced primary tumor. And what we often do

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Speaker 1: for melanoma patients is see if the melanim spread to

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Speaker 1: local lymph nodes. So I wanted to show him this

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Speaker 1: technique which was developed in a clinical trial around the world.

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Speaker 1: But to be honest, we put on more than half

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Speaker 1: the patients at what was called Sydney melanam Unit now

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Speaker 1: Malami Institute, Australia, and that lymph gland called the sentinel

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Speaker 1: lymph gland under the armpit of this particular patient, there

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Speaker 1: was a bulky tumor, which means that their risk is greater.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, for this group of patients now in melanoma,

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Speaker 1: we would offer them adjuvant immino therapy. There's one thing

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to add about the problem with brain

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Speaker 1: cancer that I've got. It's sort of got tentacles that

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Speaker 1: sneak off everywhere into your brain and you can't see

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Speaker 1: that on X rays. The surgeon can't see it when

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Speaker 1: they go in. So we need we need some therapy

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Speaker 1: which will select our tumor cells but leave your normal

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Speaker 1: brain cells alone, and a local therapy can't do that.

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Speaker 1: So that that for me, it was a no brainer

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Speaker 1: to go down this route and see if we could

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Speaker 1: find it, whether imino therapy which hopefully will select out

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Speaker 1: the tumor cells and let my normal brain cells alone

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Speaker 1: so I can still function.

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Speaker 2: Was so I found your book absolutely gripping. And you

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Speaker 2: talk about how in light of winning Australian every year

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Speaker 2: you were on the project, and that Kate Lambrook said

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Speaker 2: these words to you. They say, a wise man plants

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Speaker 2: a tree under which he will never sit. And she said,

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Speaker 2: and I'm getting emotional, she said, And we and the

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Speaker 2: rest of Australia. I hope that you sit under that

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Speaker 2: tree that you have made for all of us, so

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Speaker 2: your work will live on forever and make huge in

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Speaker 2: roads for other people.

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Speaker 1: Richard. Yeah, thanks Richard.

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Speaker 2: It's a beautiful book. The book is called Brainstorm. I

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Speaker 2: highly recommend it.

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Speaker 3: A lot of emotion going on here.

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Speaker 1: But I keep saying this, but I think you know,

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Speaker 1: you've got to work as a team if you want

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Speaker 1: to make a difference. And we've got a great team

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Speaker 1: at the Lime Institute and also the team of people

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Speaker 1: who are caring for me. Georgina was the one who

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Speaker 1: put this on the table. But I think you know,

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Speaker 1: in all parts of society you need to think big,

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Speaker 1: be bold, and be courageous and work together. And that's say,

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Speaker 1: you know, lean in and don't just lean in, leap in,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully that's how you can make a difference.

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Speaker 3: Richard mate, thank you, thank you for sharing your time

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Speaker 3: with us today. Brainstorm is out now at all good bookstores.

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Speaker 3: Richard Scolia, thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 1: My pleasure joins in Amanda, thank you