David has regularly written about his experience through pieces on innovation in chemotherapy on Idealog, as well as columns documenting his journey over at Stuff, with the most recent column announcing the current stage he is at with it is “Cancer Wars 3 – Return of the Tumour“.

In order to combat this, he wants to try a treatment that has only been publicly available for a few weeks in the US called ‘CAR-T therapy’.

As explained in Downs’ column, he writes: “The CAR bit stands for ‘Chimeric Antigen Receptors’, and the T bit refers to the T-cells in my blood, the so called ‘killer cells’. These new CAR-T cells are basically genetically modified killer cells. The treatment involves making millions of them and reinjecting them into me to fight the cancer. Like creating a Borg army of millions of cancer killers. How cool is that?”

However, he also adds the treatment costs a “squazillion dollars”, so the good folk at Swaytech have started up a Givealittle page to fundraise for the treatment.  

“David has been such an inspiration to anyone who has been reading his posts throughout the year. Let’s help him get the treatment he needs,” they wrote. 

Others like Vend’s Vaughan Rowsell have also commented on Downs’ influence on the New Zealand tech industry and encouraged the community to get involved.

To add your own donation, head to the Givealittle page here.