Tracy Tomlinson, 58, from Chadderton, Oldham, has become the first patient in the world to receive the pioneering cancer therapy ZI-MA4-1 at The Christie in Manchester, as part of a clinical trial.
Mrs Tomlinson has advanced ovarian cancer and was diagnosed in 2020. The trial is evaluating the treatment for ovarian cancer, lung cancer, sarcomas and head and neck cancer, and is led by The Christie, with a site also at the Royal Marsden in London. Many people in the study have few other options for survival.
How the new therapy works
The therapy combines two methods. It harnesses the body’s natural killer (NK) cells, specialist immune cells that destroy abnormal ones, and T-cell receptors (TCRs) on the cells are engineered to recognise and target tumours producing a protein called Mage-A4. Mage-A4 is found in several types of cancer and is considered an ideal target for attacking abnormal cells.
Unlike personalised treatments, ZI-MA4-1 is an “off-the-shelf” therapy using immune cells from donors. It is manufactured in advance from donor cells rather than being tailored to each patient, with hundreds of doses produced from a single manufacturing batch. Experts believe this could make advanced cell therapies available to more patients more quickly and at lower cost.
Tracy’s cancer journey
Mrs Tomlinson was diagnosed with ovarian cancer that had spread shortly before Christmas 2020 and immediately underwent treatment. By summer 2021, scans showed no evidence of disease, but a year later the cancer returned. Despite further rounds of treatment and 48 chemotherapy infusions, her cancer kept coming back. The former Civil Service manager said she was diagnosed as stage 3C, meaning cancer growths were spreading into the peritoneum. She currently has a tumour between the liver and kidney as well as small tumours elsewhere.
She described her husband Paul, whom she married in 2022, as her “rock” and said she is close to her son Harry, 28.
“You’ve got to have hope”
Reflecting on her illness, she said: “They’ve got rid of the cancer twice but then it came back about two and a half years ago, and we’ve never seemed to get rid of it since then. The chemotherapy has shrunk it but when treatment stops, it has come back.”
“It is a lot to live with and there’s been ups and downs – there’s been elation, there’s been disappointment, and bits in between. But I try very, very hard to remain very positive. Every day that I wake up is a positive. You’ve got to have hope.”
She said she had been target driven and set herself high standards in her working life. “But you can’t control cancer,” she said. “What I can control is how I look at it, how I deal with it, and trying to eat healthily and taking the positives in everything.”
Appreciating the small things
“And I’ve learned to appreciate the smallest of things that we take for granted – and the people around you and what they mean to you. Also, the beauty of outside and the trees and the colour of the trees and the birds singing.”
“We just go from A to B, don’t we? Busy, busy, busy. But we never slow down and take in the wonder of what’s around us. I often think, ‘I’m still here’, and that’s helped me think, ‘Why can’t I still be here in 10 years?’, ‘Why can’t I still be here in 15 years?’”
“And I believe taking all the treatments offered to me is helping me kick that can a bit further down the road. I don’t want to go anywhere. I’ve still got a lot of things I want to do and things I want to achieve.”
Joining the trial
Last year, Mrs Tomlinson was referred to The Christie’s early phase clinical trials team for extensive screening and learned she was a suitable candidate for Zima-101. “I decided almost straight away that I was going to go for it,” she said. “Then afterwards you think, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’, because it is a little bit scary being the first person in the world to have the treatment.”
She has had three infusions of the therapy, with the option of another one depending on what scans show. “If it benefits me, absolutely fantastic,” she said. “But if it benefits other people in the future, that’s important too. I don’t want to have gone through everything I’ve gone through for nothing. I want to feel like I have made a difference.”
What experts say
Professor Fiona Thistlethwaite, consultant medical oncologist at The Christie, said: “While this is an early-stage study primarily focused on safety, it represents an exciting step forward in efforts to develop new treatment options for people like Tracy with advanced solid tumours. We hope the knowledge gained will help shape future cancer treatments and ultimately improve outcomes for patients.”
Dr Jon Lim, consultant medical oncologist in advanced immunotherapy and cell therapy at The Christie, told PA: “What’s very exciting about this is that these are essentially not kind of antibody-based, but living cells. These are live immune cells that are infused in hundreds of millions back to the patient, and the idea of this is that it is a little bit more targeted. The reason this is very interesting is because this is the first of its kind globally in this approach, where it’s taking donor immune cells, manipulating or engineering them, and putting them into the recipient. Tracy is essentially getting somebody else’s immune cells that have been engineered to ‘see’ her cancer. We’re very excited. This is a novel approach in the cell therapy space. We are also really showcasing what we can do in the UK.”
