Actor Sam Neill says he is cancer-free after five years of living with lymphoma, thanks to a genetic therapy that modified his immune system
SYDNEY: Actor Sam Neill says he is cancer-free after five years of living with lymphoma, thanks to a genetic therapy that modified his immune system.
The New Zealander, who starred as Dr Alan Grant in the 1993 blockbuster “Jurassic Park”, revealed in a 2023 memoir he was “possibly dying” with stage-three non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Neill, 78, said in a weekend interview he had lived with the blood cancer for about five years but his chemotherapy treatment eventually stopped working.
“I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal, obviously,” he told Australia’s Channel Seven News.
The actor was treated with CAR T-cell therapy, which uses a disabled virus to genetically reprogram human infection-fighting T-cells, enabling them to target specific cancers.
“I’ve just had a scan just now, and there is no cancer in my body — that’s an extraordinary thing,” Neil said.
He is calling on Australian federal and state governments to fund CAR T-cell therapy for blood cancer patients across the country.
Neill’s acting career began in the 1970s and has spanned dozens of roles in TV and film, including “Peaky Blinders”, “The Hunt for Red October”, and “The Piano”
