A new drug doing wonders against cancer, the news spread quickly.

The world holds out hope that one day there will be a breakthrough and we may yet find a cure for the disease that impacts on the lives of so many and takes the lives of so many others.

Unanderra’s Jennifer Harris is living proof of the international immunotherapy drug trial, which made the world headlines after the trial’s results were presented this week at a medical conference in Copenhagen.

The drug is being hailed as a “game changer”.

It certainly has been for Jennifer.

The drug is giving her a future when she was told she had none.

Diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, as well as secondary brain cancer, in June last year the 61-year-old thought she only had months to live.

After the brain tumours were removed through surgery Jennifer was placed in the drug trial rather than chemotherapy.

To this point and long may it continue, the lung tumour has shrunk and the brain cancer has not returned.

Wollongong oncologist Dr Ali Tafreshi labelled the results as “extraordinary”.

‘’The trial found the drug prevented cancer from spreading in almost half the patients at 12 months, making it three times more effective than chemotherapy,’’ he said.

It’s wonderful to think our patients are benefitting from an international trial of this scale and helping to change the world.

There is hope.

Cancer, in many cases,  is no longer the death sentence that it used to be.

In the US, Vice President Joe Biden has been labelled as the “Cancer Advocate in Chief”, charged in that country by President Obama with leading the fight to find a cure after losing his son to brain cancer last year.

Biden has related the fight to find a cure to the quest to land man on the moon.

"I believe that we need a moon shot in this country to cure cancer,’’ he said.

“It's personal. But I know we can do this ... because there are so many breakthroughs just on the horizon in science and medicine, the things that are just about to happen.

“And we can make them real with an absolute national commitment to end cancer as we know it today." 

Hillary Clinton has already said she would take up that fight and the world is in on the fight. Hopefully, it is only a matter of time.