Life was going swimmingly for comedian, actor, business man David Downs until one day he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

After 12 rounds of chemotherapy, Downs was told his cancer was terminal and given six months to live.

The same day he was given hope – a treatment called CAR T cell therapy.

The therapy needed to be undertaken in Boston USA.  It’s a gruelling and expensive treatment, but ultimately it saved his life.

Downs is now instrumental in helping the Malaghan Institue in Wellington begin trials of CAR-T cell therapy in New Zealand.

He joined Andrew Dickens to discuss the treatment and his new book on his experience, A Mild Touch of the Cancer.