It was great to welcome James Christian (10858) back to College for his interview with ITV Channel News on his hopes to develop a cure for cancer using the Covid-19 virus. From September 2023 James will be studying for a PhD on the potential of using the Covid-19 virus to develop a vaccine which could boost the immune system and destroy cancer cells.

James’ interest in immunology was sparked at a presentation hosted at Les Cotils by Professor Tim Elliott. He spent a placement year at the University of Southampton’s centre for cancer immunology, working alongside Professor Elliott, and will be returning there in September for his four-year PhD.

Immunotherapy is a promising treatment for cancer with fewer side effects, and we need to get to a point where that is the usual treatment people have – but more research is needed to get to that point, and he hopes that his PhD will go some way in getting us there.

James’ PhD is funded in part through donations from Guernsey residents to the Wessex Medical Trust, a bursary from Guernsey’s Healthxchange and the university’s cancer immunology fund. Guernsey residents have a long history of supporting cancer research in Southampton, with £15m. of the £25m. needed to build the Centre for Cancer Immunology coming from people in the Channel Islands.