Since his first TEDxAuckland talk, David Downs’ life has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. A year ago, the ex-comedian was facing a terminal diagnosis, but through a series of remarkable events is now cancer-free. In this moving talk, David shares the three life lessons that fighting cancer taught him.
Down with Cancer helps raise funds to make the revolutionary CAR T-cell therapy available in New Zealand for those who need it. David is General Manager at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), an ex-comedian, TV and Radio actor, a recent cancer conqueror and documentor of his battle with cancer in the popular column ‘A Mild Touch of the Cancer’ on NZ’s Stuff. David was given less than a year to live but managed to beat cancer in a remarkable series of lucky breaks. After a year of chemotherapy, and staring a terminal diagnosis in the face, David got a literal lifeline, with the chance to get on to a clinical trial in the USA. Now a genetically modified cancer-killing machine, David’s reflecting on the lucky series of events that saw him beat cancer, and on his new approach to life.
