At first meeting, you could be forgiven for thinking Caroline Oliver is an Auckland ‘lady who lunches’, but there’s much more to her smartly-dressed, sociable persona - she recently worked for a biotech company where her PhD thesis and ongoing work have contributed to a ground-breaking approach to cancer treatment.

Caroline has lived in Wanaka for almost a year and has made herself very much at home in this community, leading music sessions for preschoolers, chairing the Wanaka branch of the National Party, and as a member of St Columba Anglician church’s committee, the Upper Clutha Parish Vestry, the Wanaka branch of the Royal Society of NZ, and service group Rotary.

It’s a long way from her role as research officer in the Kode Biotech laboratory at the Auckland University of Technology, from which her work has been cited in more than 40 published papers.

Kode is involved with a range of biosurface engineering techniques, and one of its innovative technologies is licensed to an immunotherapy company which is now on the brink of releasing a personalised treatment of cancer. Clinical trials have resulted in an unheard of 100 per cent regression rate, Caroline said.

The synthetic animal-antigen molecule ‘AGI 134’, Kode’s patented treatment, is injected into primary tumours. The immune system rejects animal tissue, so it attacks the modified tumour and in the process destroys the tumour. Meanwhile the immune system is educated to recognise the person’s own tumour antigens, and it destroys unmodified primary and secondary tumours.

“I’m very proud of the company and very privileged to be involved,” Caroline said. 

Her link to the company dates back to when she worked at an Auckland blood transfusion centre. She had a staff member called Stephen Henry (now a professor), who went on to establish Kode Biotech. Kode was awarded NZ Innovator in Health Science in 2015.

‘AGI 134’ has been through hazard trials and clinical trials, with incredible results, Caroline said. The therapy secured US Food and Drug Administration approval last year. 

“It will be so dramatic when it’s on the market,” she said. “It will revolutionise cancer therapy.” 

Kode has more than 100 patents for different therapeutic techniques, and Caroline herself has two patents: for neutralising antibodies, and measuring cell survival.

She left Kode last year when her contract expired. “I’d made my mark. I thought it was unfair to others who need the funding, and I didn’t want to stay in Auckland.”

Caroline’s involvement in the field was almost accidental, as her heart was in working on tissue transplant techniques. But being married with three children meant developing her career further wasn’t really on the cards. “I fell off the ladder,” she said.

She would go to university from 9am to 2.30pm then race off to pick up the kids from school.

“You might have done something amazing but you had to leave it for tomorrow,” she said, although she admitted to sometimes heading back to the lab after 8pm.

She earned a Master of Applied Science, and a PhD, in which she looked at neutralising blood group antigens.

“Unknown to me, it would become the basis for the Kode cancer therapy,” she said. “I was just delighted to contribute what I did.”

After finishing her PhD in 2013 she was accepted at both Cambridge and Oxford to do further study on stem cell and regenerative medicine technology. This self-confessed “party person” livened up the workplace at the Stem Cell Immunotherapy Lab and Research Labs in Oxford University; and she is pleased the staff morning teas she instigated are still continuing. “I’m very collegial in my work.”

She also spent time in stem cell laboratories in Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Kings College, and the John Goldman Centre, London.

After her divorce in 2016 she built a house in Wanaka, not far from the house she and her husband had used as a holiday home since 2009. 

She joined St Columba, which she loves for its modern traditional approach and “intelligent level of worship”. The church is - and always has been - a big part of her life, and Caroline says her belief boils down to two things: “Love each other as you love yourself; do to others as you would have them do to you.”

She also values the structure the church provides in caring for others. She has always done a lot of voluntary work - she inherited an “altruistic gene” from her parents: “Cubs, Brownies, school committees, church,” she lists. “To me, church is outside the church.” 

Caroline led a pre-school Mainly Music session in Auckland for 14 years, and now coordinates the “wonderful programme” here in Wanaka. She also provided ‘science in the classroom sessions’ for Year 5/6 at Cornwall Park and Glen Innes school (she has a Teacher Aide Certificate) and is hoping to offer the same thing here in Wanaka. 

There’s more: Caroline sings soprano in the church choir and is practising for The Messiah later this year, as well as studying a certificate of small business management (to support her dress-making - she makes most of her own clothes).

It’s a diverse range of activities. “I describe my life as a series of Venn diagrams - and I’m in the middle,” Caroline said.

A recent full day included Mainly Music in the morning, lunching with friends, attending the Lazareth Quartet in the evening, followed by her business class - and managing to fit in a glass of wine along the way.

“You could not do that in Auckland because you wouldn’t have time with the travel,” she said.

Caroline is determined to make the most of life after watching two close friends die in the past year; and she is excited about the imminent release of the promising new cancer treatment to which she has contributed. 

“I feel I’ve ticked all the good boxes,” she said.

PHOTO: Supplied