Speakers

MB, BS (Hons), MD, FRACP, FRCPA
Professor Constantine (Con) Tam is Head of Lymphoma Service at Alfred Health, and Professor of Haematology at Monash University. Con graduated from the University of Melbourne and dual trained in Haematology and Haematopathology, including a Leukemia Fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre. Prior to moving to the Alfred, Con served as Disease Group Lead for Low Grade Lymphoma and CLL at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for over 10 years.

Con is the global lead for the BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib, and oversaw its development from the first human dosed (in Melbourne) to successful international licensing studies worldwide. Con designed and performed the first global study to combine ibrutinib and venetoclax, publishing the results in the New England Journal of Medicine 5 years after inception. In 2015, he became the Australian lead for the pivotal study of Tisagenlecleucel in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, leading to public funding for CAR T-cells as standard treatment in Australia.

The publication record for Con includes 275 peer-reviewed papers in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blood and other top-tier journals. His work has been cited >20,000 times in the literature. Con is Associate Editor for Blood Advances.

Biography

Dr Ian Irving graduated from the University of Queensland in 1991 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. He became a fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians in 2000 and of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia in 2001. Dr Irving has previously been appointed in the public system as the director of haematology and bone marrow transplantation at the Townsville Hospital. From 2006 – 2013, he was the clinical director of the Institute of Cancer, during which time he was responsible for consolidating and expanding tertiary level cancer care in North Queensland.

His expertise covers a very broad range of haematological disorders, including bone marrow transplantation (autologous and allogeneic), acute leukaemia, lymphoma, obstetric haematology, general haematology, disorders of iron metabolism and laboratory haematology. This expertise comes from his extensive training and consultant posts in Brisbane, Perth and overseas in the positions of haematologist at Sullivan Nicolaides and St John of God Pathology, consultant haematologist at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, transplant physician (locum) at St James Hospital Dublin, consultant haematologist at National Maternity Hospital (Dublin), and haematologist at PathCentre WA.

Although retaining broad haematological knowledge, Dr Irving has a special clinical interest in lymphoma, myelodysplasia and myeloproliferative disorders. He has sat on national and international committees and advisory boards, focusing on haematological disorders such as chronic myeloid leukaemia, myelofibrosis, myelodysplasia, lymphoma and bone marrow transplantation.

Dr Irving is a strong advocate for clinical trial research, participating in phase I/II and III multicentre clinical trials. Dr Irving has many leadership qualities in addition to his clinical skills, having performed senior administrative roles in haematology and cancer.

Dr Ian Irving currently consults at Icon Wesley and Icon Mackay, and is Medical Director of Icon Group.

Dr Dinesh Sivaratnam is the Head of Nuclear Medicine and PET at the Royal Melbourne and Head of Nuclear Medicine and PET at Cabrini and lead specialist in Theranostics at Cabrini-Genesiscare.

He is a dually trained Cardiologist and Nuclear Medicine Physician. His special interests include nuclear cardiology, PET imaging in breast and prostate cancer and theranostics.

Samantha Cullis is a General Practitioner and practice owner in Ashburton Victoria.

She completed her MBBS (Monash) in 1999 going on to spend hospital training years at Monash and a year at the Royal Adelaide hospital.  She started training for General practice in 2005 and became a fellow of the RACGP in 2008.

I am a dynamic and motivated healthcare professional with 30 years experience across a number of commercial roles. For more than 18 years I have lead and managed teams, of which the last 12 years have been in senior leadership roles, including almost 2 years as General Manager for Roche Pharmaceuticals in New Zealand. I am currently employed as the Lead for the Healthcare Community at Roche Australia and lead a team of more than 30 individuals across Regulatory Affairs, Market Access, Policy, Corporate and Public Affairs.

Michael is an honours graduate of Monash University Medical School. He trained at at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and spent his fellowship year overseas at the Royal Marsden Hospital, UK. He returned to Australia and worked as a staff specialist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and has been working at GenesisCare since 2009. He works as a general oncologist with special interest in prostate, lung, breast and GI malignancies. He is the head of the stereotactic radiotherapy service at GenesisCare Vic which treats over 800 patients with stereotactic radiotherapy per year. He has previous been radiotherapy chair of EviQ cancer guidelines and now a member ofthe Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) for the federal government.

Chief Executive, Rare Cancers Australia

Richard attended the University of Melbourne where he studied Mathematics and Statistics. He then trained as an Actuary but was inspired to join the fledging IT industry before qualifying. After several years working in software development, Richard formed his own software company which he then sold in 1990 before embarking on a second software venture in Europe.  In 1996, Richard returned to Australia where he was retained by an American company to help establish their Australian operation. In 2001, Richard left IT to work in a number of not-for-profits associated with politics and health.

In 2012 Richard and his wife Kate established Rare Cancers Australia, a patient advocacy group, whose mission is to improve the lives and outcomes for rare cancer patients.

Since the formation of RCA in June 2012 the organisation has become recognised as a leader in the broader cancer community. RCA has published research on the state of rare and less common cancers through the “Just a little more time” reports, has successfully advocated for policy reform around research and treatment for rare cancers, and has provided substantial and innovative support to Australian patients living with rare and less common cancers.

He is Chair and Chief Executive of Rare Cancers Australia, Convener and Co-chair of the National Oncology Alliance and Deputy Chair of the Australian Genomics Cancer Medicines Centre (OMICO). Richard also serves as an associate investigator on a number of research projects.

Richard is now a highly sought after thought leader and speaker on cancer related matters.

Jo Kelly is a registered and endorsed Nurse Practitioner who completed her Master of Nursing Practice (Nurse Practitioner) and has Graduate Diplomas in Palliative Care and Gerontology and more recently completed her paediatric palliative care studies.

Jo has been practicing as a Nurse Practitioner for the past 10 years and is passionate about symptom management and end-of-life care being person centred, safe and effective. Jo has been working in the palliative care sector for 30 years across the inpatient and community sectors in both metropolitan and regional areas. Within this time, Jo has seen numerous changes with the ethos shifting from ‘less than six months to live’ to now encompassing earlier symptom management to enhance quality of life for any person across the lifespan diagnosed with a life limiting illness. As well as working at Palliative Care South East, Jo also works at Northern Hospital in the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) and has her own business as a Clinical Educator, Mentor and Neurocoach.

MBBS(Hons), MD, FRACP, FICIS, FAAHMS

Dr Amelia McCartney is a medical oncologist who obtained her medical degree from the University of Sydney in 2004. Prior to her medical studies, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University. She completed her specialist training in Victoria in centres including Epworth Freemasons, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, University Hospital Geelong and Royal Melbourne Hospital.

She completed a four‐year fellowship in translational and clinical breast cancer research under the supervision and mentorship of Dr Angelo Di Leo in Prato, Italy. Dr McCartney’s particular areas of research interest are the discovery and trialling of biomarkers related to prognosis and early response to treatment, mechanisms of treatment resistance, and strategies of safely de‐escalating breast cancer therapies. Research relating to her fellowship have been presented at international meetings including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting. She is a serving member of several international collaborative trial committees under the auspices of the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) and the Breast International Group (BIG).