Professor Mark Smithers AM is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and a Member of the Order of Australia 2018. He is a surgeon involved in the management of patients with all stages of melanoma for 30.
Melanoma interests:
Surgeon involved in the management of patients with all stages of melanoma for 30 years.
Senior surgeon, Chair of the Multidisciplinary Team Meeting, Melanoma Clinic at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
Research involvement:
Epidemiology of melanoma in Queensland – Collaboration with the Berghofer, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Epidemiology Unit.
Assessment of the outcomes of patients with high-risk primary and secondary melanoma.
Phase I-III trials in the surgical and medical management of patients with primary disease as well as stage III and IV melanoma. These include locally based studies as well as collaboration in national and international trials and Pharma supported trials.
Professor Georgina Long, is Co-Medical Director of Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), and Chair of Melanoma Medical Oncology and Translational Research at MIA and Royal North Shore Hospital, The University of Sydney. Professor Long has been appointed as an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia (General Division) for distinguished service to medicine, particularly, to melanoma clinical and translational research, and to professional medical societies.
She leads an extensive clinical trials team and laboratory at MIA, with a focus on targeted therapies and immuno-oncology in melanoma. She is principal investigator on phase I, II and III clinical trials in adjuvant and metastatic melanoma, including trials in patients with active brain metastases.
She is the chief investigator on NHMRC funded research into the molecular biology of melanoma, with a particular interest in clinical and tissue biomarker correlates of systemic therapy sensitivity and resistance. In recognition of her ground-breaking research, Professor Long has received several awards, including the prestigious Sir Zelman Cowen Universities Fund Prize for Discovery in Medical Research (2016). She has a number of CINSW Premiers Awards, including; the Outstanding Cancer Researcher (2018), the Excellence in Translational Cancer Research Award (2017), the Wildfire Award for the most highly-cited, original, peer-reviewed article published (2011, 2014, 2016 and 2017), and in 2013 she was named the Outstanding Cancer Research Fellow. She is the author of over 280 peer-reviewed publications in clinical and translational research in melanoma, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology and Cancer Discovery. Professor Long has presented her work at international conferences and meetings on more than 150 occasions.
She is President for the prestigious international Society for Melanoma Research (since 2018), is a member (2015-2017) and Chair (2016) of the ASCO Scientific Committee for Melanoma/Skin cancer, is medical oncology lead for the Australian Melanoma Management Guidelines Committee, is on the editorial boards of several high-impact journals, and is a member of the Melanoma Expert Panel for AJCC Cancer Staging System 8th edition.
Professor Long was awarded the University Medal in Organic Chemistry. She subsequently completed her PhD in Chemistry in the field of anti-cancer agents and their binding to DNA. She then moved to the USA to take up a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship at Scripps Research Institute, exploring nanotechnology in cancer treatment, before returning to Australia to complete her MBBS (Hons). Professor Long became a Fellow of the Australasian College of Physicians in January 2008, specialising in medical oncology.
Professor Grant McArthur AO is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and holds a Ph.D. in Medical Biology. He is the Executive Director of the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre; inaugural Lorenzo Galli Chair of Melanoma and Skin Cancers at the University of Melbourne and is a Senior Principal Research Fellow (NHMRC).
He is also Head of the Molecular Oncology Laboratory and a Senior Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Professor McArthur was the inaugural winner of the Translational Research Award of the Foundation Nelia et Amadeo Barletta, has held the Sir Edward Dunlop Clinical Cancer Research Fellowship of the Cancer Council of Victoria, was awarded the inaugural Martin Lackmann medal for translational research, received the Medical Oncology Group of Australia’s Novartis Oncology Cancer Achievement Award and has been the recipient of the prestigious Tom Reeve Award from Clinical Oncology Society of Australia.
He has been a national and international study co-chair of a number of clinical trials of targeted therapies. His research interests include discovery of novel drug targets in cancer, targeting oncogenes, immunological effect of targeted therapies, clinical trials of targeted therapeutics, personalised medicine, melanoma, cell cycle control, metabolism and protein synthesis in cancer.
In 2023, Professor McArthur was appointed as an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia (General Division) in the King’s Birthday Honours List.
Associate Professor Victoria Atkinson is a Senior Staff Specialist Medical Oncologist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital since 2007 and Visiting Medical Oncologist at Greenslopes Private Hospital since 2011.
Her undergraduate training was undertaken at the University of Queensland and she completed her FRACP in Medical Oncology in 2006. Her tumour interests include Melanoma and Gastro-intestinal tumours.
She has extensive experience with targeted therapies for Melanoma including Vemurafenib, Dabrafenib, Trametinib and Ipilimumab, Nivolumab and Pembrolizumab and is involved in clinical trials with these therapies at both sites.
Head, South-West Clinical Cluster Deputy Head, School of Medicine Chair, Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland. Professor Peter Soyer has a dual role within the University of Queensland.
He is the Head of the South-West Clinical Cluster & Deputy Head of the School of Medicine, and the inaugural Chair and Director of the Dermatology Research Centre at the Translational Research Institute. He is also Director of the Dermatology Department at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
Professor Soyer, an academic dermatologist from Austria, is a world leader in the field of dermatology with particular expertise in the areas of clinical dermatology, dermatooncology, dermatopathology and dermatologic imaging (dermoscopy and reflectance confocal microscopy).
His research group’s main focus is skin cancer (both non-melanoma skin cancer and melanoma), and he is co-inventor in multiple patents for novel skin delivery platforms and microbiospy sampling devices. He has an extensive publication record with over 600 publications to date (more than 150 publications in the last 5 years) and more than 550 citations a year (in the last 5 years) and a Hirsch index of 63 (Google Scholar). He is past President of the International Society of Dermoscopy and the International Society of Teledermatology and is co-editor in chief of the Australasian Journal of Dermatology. He is lead investigator of the Centre of Research Excellence for the Study of Naevi awarded in December 2015, funded by the Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Professor Jane Turner is a consultation-liaison psychiatrist who has worked clinically for over 25 years in psycho-oncology. She treats patients with diverse cancer diagnoses & disease stages.
However, she has a particular interest in Stage III and IV melanoma including the impact on families, and ways of assisting parents to talk with their dependent children.
She is President of the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS), the peak international body promoting psycho-oncology, Chairs the Guidelines Committee, and is Co-Chair of the WHO Committee of IPOS which has developed a comprehensive program to enhance the status of psychosocial care globally, with a focus on education and capacity-building in low-to middle-income countries. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Psycho-Oncology Cooperative Research Group and Scientific Advisor to Breast Cancer Network of Australia.
She has been extensively involved in educational initiatives to enhance the confidence and skills of health professionals in providing psychosocial care for people affected by cancer. Her research interests include evaluation of innovative models of psychosocial care provided by front-line health professionals, and promotion of wellness for cancer survivors. She was a member of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Working Group that developed the COSA Model of Survivorship Care, launched in 2016. She was an investigator in a multi-site trial of a manual-based psychosocial intervention for patients with breast, colorectal cancer and melanoma with high fear of cancer recurrence. This intervention successfully reduced fear of cancer recurrence and she has been extensively involved in training health professionals in this model of treatment.
