A British Indian doctor, Dr. Tony Dhillon, is leading a groundbreaking international trial of a vaccine aimed at combating bowel cancer. Dr. Dhillon, aged 53, serves as a consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Surrey NHS Hospital Trust and holds the position of senior lecturer in oncology. Born in Maidenhead, he traces his paternal roots to his grandfather who immigrated to the UK in the early 1950s from Surja village in the Jalandhar district.
The vaccine, designed by Imugene, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company in Australia, is intended for 15% of the total population of patients with a specific sub-type of bowel cancer. It involves three doses given two weeks apart before surgery to activate the immune system to kill the cancer. The phase 2 trial will involve 44 patients at 10 centers across the UK and Australia and is expected to last one year.
Dr. Dhillon explained, ‘We reckon when patients go to operation there won’t be much cancer left, and with some people it might go completely. We need to do the trials to prove that, and that is what we are about to start.’ He also mentioned the potential for the vaccine to work in other cancers, with the possibility of conducting trials with other cancer types in the future.
Dr. Dhillon’s family history includes his grandfather’s relocation from a Punjab village to the UK to work in a ‘Brylcreem’ factory. His parents, who were not formally educated, worked in factories as well. Despite this background, Dr. Dhillon pursued his education, attending medical school at UCL, obtaining a PhD at Imperial College London, and completing post-graduate work at Oxford.
