Professor Luke O'Neill

speaker

1,535 appearances 7 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 3 Sep

Professor Luke O'Neill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 3.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

Show Me the Science with Luke O'Neill · The Science of Gut Health · 21 May 2026 podcast

That's one idea that they're exploring.

And they've got evidence for this.

It's great.

And for some reason, this barnacella one is especially sensitive to chemo and can release things that provoke the immune system into action to help fight the tumor.

It's a funny discovery that actually the chemo isn't just a poison then.

We know now chemo is also very good at driving the immune response.

either through this route, through bacteria, or through damaging our own cells, which then release things that trigger the immune response as well.

So the combination with chemo is a really interesting area that's developing all the time.

And another study that's been shown to be relevant is antibiotics, which will kill bacteria, can decrease the response to chemo.

So if you have antibiotics to clear bacteria,

they're no longer there and the chemo can't act on them and therefore you're getting a decreased response.

And in fact, the advice now is don't take antibiotics or your doctor will do this for you with chemo because it could potentially decrease the effect of chemo.

Very, very important observation.

But the real excitement is about immunotherapy.

Now remember, I think I've discovered this before, any regular listeners will know immunotherapy in cancer is massive.

Blocking various targets in the immune system to unleash it will allow the immune system, your very own immune system, to go into a tumor and kill it, just like it would a bacteria or a virus or whatever it is.

And this is a very important area within immunology.

It's called immuno-oncology and it's seen as the real prospect to cure cancer.

Maybe certainly to treat it will be through the immune system.

Now,

Showing 961–980 of 1,535 · page 49 of 77