Dr Alicia Didsbury

Dr Alicia Didsbury obtained her PhD with Professor Rod Dunbar at the University of Auckland where she developed a novel protocol for growing tumour-specific T-cells. She currently leads the translational cell therapy team (Team T-cell) within Rod Dunbar’s lab where their primary focus is process development for their upcoming Phase 1 trial in metastatic melanoma. In addition to this, Alicias’s ongoing research centres around the interplay between the immune system and tumour microenvironment of epithelial ovarian cancer. Alicia is committed to improving outcomes for women with this understudied malignancy, this work has a strong clinical/translational focus.

She is actively engaged in a variety of regional and international committees, contributing as an active member of the ISCT (International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy) and as a member of the ovarian cancer tumour work group for ANZGOG (ANZ Gynaecological Oncology Group). Alicia is also a trustee for Cure Our Ovarian Cancer, New Zealand’s only dedicated ovarian cancer charity. She lives with her family in the West Auckland suburb of Titirangi, where she loves to garden and grow flowers whenever the opportunity arises. In Alicia’s view, nurturing growth is a defining aspect of her life: be it tending to flowers, nurturing her children, or cultivating the potential of T-cells.