Speakers

Prof. Stéphane Supiot is a clinician Scientist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest, University of Nantes, France. Prof. Supiot’s interests are in developmental therapeutics for pediatric and prostate cancer radiotherapy. His preclinical research interests are hypoxic response modifiers and the vascular response to irradiation. His clinical areas of research involve biochemically relapsing and oligometastatic prostate cancer. He is principal investigator on several clinical studies in the Groupe d’Etude des Tumeurs Uro Genitales-GETUG group, such as Oligopelvis GETUG P07, Oligopelvis 2 GETUG P12, POSTCARD GETUG P13, CARLHA GEP 12, CARLHA 2 GETUG 33.

Dr. Stephen Kry is a board certified tenured professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where he serves as director and principal investigator of the National Cancer Institute’s Imaging and Radiation Oncology Core and ensures the highest quality data for clinical trials. He also serves as director of the Radiation Quality Assurance Laboratory and an Accredited Dosimetry Calibration Laboratory. Dr. Stephen Kry has extensive independent funding, more than 150 peer reviewed publications, and has mentored more than 40 graduate students. He is also a native Canadian and avid skier and hiker.

Dr Gerry Adams is a UK trained clinical oncologist who arrived in Australia in 2010. After completing his Fellowship he has worked as a consultant in regional Queensland for 9 years and was involved in various positions within the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) during that time. For the last 3 years he has been a member of RANZCR Council and Chair of the Economics and Work Force Committee (EWC). As RANZCR Dean Gerry’s position on the Board of Directors of TROG will help maintain the important strategic links and shared values of our two organisations. Gerry has a particular interest in improving access to quality radiation therapy in regional areas.

Associate Professor Haryana Dhillon (BSc MA PhD) is a Senior Research Fellow, who co-leads the Survivorship Research Group at the University of Sydney. They chair the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Psycho-Oncology Cooperative Research Group.

Haryana has more than 25 years experience in cancer clinical research across a range of investigator-initiated cancer clinical trials. Their research interests are broad encompassing cancer survivorship, health literacy, and interventions for survivorship, symptom management, and psycho-oncology.

Haryana is passionate about rigor in research, practical solutions to tricky problems, and doing what she can to help humans make it to the 22nd century.

Dr Harriet Gee is a Staff Specialist in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Westmead Hospital, Sydney. She holds an MBBS/B Med Sci (First Class Honours), from the University of Melbourne, and a DPhil in Molecular Oncology from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. As well as clinical practice serving patients with thoracic cancer, she is actively engaged in translational research, co-leading a research program examining cell death after ablative radiotherapy. Dr Gee teaches medical students and advanced trainees and has been involved in curriculum development for the RANZCR.

Dr Fiona Hegi-Johnson is a Radiation Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Victoria and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Clinically, she specialises in the treatment of patients with lung and breast cancer, including a subspecialty interest in stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR). Fiona is also the Chair of the TROG Lung Subspecialty Group and is the chief investigator on a number of clinical trials in lung cancer. Fiona’s research programme, which is supported by a Victorian Cancer Agency Fellowship, focuses on developing and using novel PET tracers to integrate biological and imaging information into radiotherapy to develop personalized, biologically driven approaches to radiotherapy treatment.

Dr Deme Karikios is a medical oncologist at Nepean Hospital in Sydney. He has a clinical and research interest in thoracic and gastrointestinal malignancies.

Deme also has a research interest in costs and value of anticancer drugs, decisions about treatment with expensive unsubsidised anticancer drugs and financial toxicity. He was awarded his PhD in 2019, entitled “The consequences of rising anticancer drug costs in Australia” which he undertook at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney.

Deme is a founding member of the Common Sense Oncology movement and active member of the COSA Financial Toxicity Working Group.

Deme is a co-supervisor of several PhD students and is a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Sydney

Deme has an interest in cancer care policy and is the immediate past chair of the Medical Oncology Group of Australia.

Assoc. Prof. Michael Jameson FRACP FRCP (Edin.) PhD is Co-director of Cancer Trials New Zealand (CTNZ) based at the University of Auckland, Assistant Dean at the Waikato Clinical Campus, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, and Medical Oncologist at Waikato Hospital, Hamilton. His main research interests gravitate towards collaborative investigator-initiated clinical trials and translational research, including repurposing drugs in oncology. As Co-director of CTNZ since 2022 he works with a team focussed on supporting clinical and scientific researchers to develop investigator-initiated clinical and translational research projects, gain grant funding, and conduct those trials at multiple sites. He is leading a CTNZ project to develop a formal national cancer trials network in New Zealand, aligning with the “Enhancing Aotearoa New Zealand Clinical Trials” project. This includes a focus on strategies to improve equitable access to clinical trials, which includes developing the clinical research workforce and infrastructure, especially in smaller regional and rural communities. CTNZ collaborated with government agencies, industry bodies and other researchers to successfully develop standard operating procedures for decentralised trials in New Zealand, with such trials now underway.

Susanne Rogers qualified at the University of Cambridge, UK and undertook general medical training and subsequently clinical oncology training in London, UK. She undertook research focusing on targeted EGFR inhibition in head and neck cancer at The Royal Marsden Hospital / Institute of Cancer Research and was awarded a PhD in 2010. Since then, she lives and works in Switzerland, where she is deputy head of radiotherapy at Kantonsspital Aarau. Her current clinical and research interests include radiotherapy and radiosurgery for the treatment of primary and secondary brain tumours.

Associate Professor Craig Underhill is a medical oncologist at Albury-Wodonga Regional Cancer and Wellness Centre. He is conjoint Associate Professor at the University of NSW Clinical School in Albury, and Adjunct Professor at Charles Sturt University. After training in Melbourne and working as a research fellow at Guys Hospital London and Ludwig Institute Melbourne, he led the development of a medical oncology service in Albury-Wodonga and established an independent not-for-profit Clinical Trials Unit (Border Medical Oncology Research Unit) which has twice been awarded NSW Premier's Award for Innovation in Cancer Clinical Trials.

As the VCCC Regional Oncology Co-Lead he advocates for the increased access to clinical trials for regional Victorians and leads the Victorian Teletrials Collaboration. This program has operationalised teletrial methodology (also known as decentralized clinical trials). He is leading a research program awarded by the Australian Government for AUD$18.5million over 5 years to implement teletrials and conduct health services research via telehealth across the Regionla Trials Network – Victoria.