Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Peter Mac is Australia's only dedicated cancer hospital and a leader in theranostics, CAR-T, and radiation oncology.
Pioneered PSMA PET and 177Lu-PSMA trials (Hofman: TheraP, proPSMA); Australia's first CAR-T centre; Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
- PSMA theranostics (TheraP, proPSMA)
- CAR-T
- Radiation oncology
Principal investigator of CROWN, where lorlatinib produced the longest disease control ever recorded for a targeted lung cancer pill.
A melanoma pioneer who led the vemurafenib and cobimetinib trials and now heads Victoria's cancer alliance.
An immunologist who worked out how killer T cells destroy their targets, and now directs research at Australia's cancer hospital.
Led proPSMA and TheraP, the trials that proved PSMA PET beats conventional imaging and that lutetium-PSMA beats chemotherapy.
A ctDNA pioneer whose early work showed blood could track breast cancer better than protein markers or imaging.
Runs the medical oncology side of Peter Mac's theranostics programme, combining lutetium-PSMA with hormonal and immune therapies.
Showed that immune cells inside breast tumours predict outcome, the basis for de-escalating chemotherapy in TNBC.
For stage II colon cancer, where most patients are cured by surgery alone, a blood test can identify the minority who benefit from chemotherapy and spare everyone else its side effects. It does not yet prove that treating ctDNA-positive patients improves survival compared with not treating them.
For ALK-positive advanced lung cancer, lorlatinib as the first drug offers the possibility of many years without progression and strong protection against brain metastases. Alectinib and brigatinib remain alternatives with a gentler side-effect profile; the choice weighs lorlatinib's cognitive, metabolic and weight effects against its unmatched duration of control.