A Hampshire grandad who was staring death in the face has been given a new lease of life after becoming the world's first human guinea pig for a pioneering new cancer treatment.
Michael Wallace, 65, was diagnosed with the terminal blood cancer multi-myeloma in August 2000 and was the first person in the world to take part in the trial of a DNA vaccine to fight the disease.
He is today helping to further the vital research by handing over a cheque for £2.3m to researchers at the University of Southampton on behalf of national charity the Leukaemia Research Fund.
Mr Wallace, who lives with his wife Carole in Hotspur Close, Hythe, became involved in the research after undergoing chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant to fight the incurable disease, which affects an estimated 3,000 people in the UK each year.
He said: "They asked me in 2002 if I would be willing to go on a new trial treatment.
"They took a bone marrow biopsy and sent it off to a laboratory in Bristol and mine was the only one that responded.
"From that they made a serum which they then have to get into the body.
"They found that everybody was tolerant to tetanus so they put it into the tetanus injection and injected it."
Mr Wallace had a course of injections over several months and may also be given a booster vaccine course in the future.
While the treatment will not cure the retired ceramic tiler's cancer, it has helped to keep it at bay and has certainly offered him renewed hope for the future.
Mr Wallace remains the only person in Europe to undergo the treatment and is one of just five in the world.
He added: "It's to try to make the body put up an immune system to the disease because it's not curable.
"The injections don't do anything to you, they don't give you a boost, but at the moment my blood readings are good and that's what they go on.
"It's got to have prolonged my life a bit more and my family are pleased as well."
Researchers aim to use the money to develop better vaccines for patients with leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma.
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