Georgina Venetia Long AO FAA FRACP is Co-Medical Director of the Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), and Chair of Melanoma Medical Oncology and Translational Research at MIA and Royal North Shore Hospital, The University of Sydney. [1]
Long is the first woman and the first Australian to be president of the world’s largest association of melanoma researchers and scientists, the US-based Society for Melanoma Research. [2] She has authored over 300 publications in melanoma clinical and translational research, including papers in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet , and has presented at hundreds of international conferences. [3] Long has also been recognised as one of the 100 Influential Women in Oncology by OncoDaily. [4]
She became 2024 Australian of the Year alongside Co-Medical Director Professor Richard Scolyer. [5] Long was awarded the prestigious US Mission Australia Award for Leadership Excellence in 2024.
Long grew up in a family of six children, with parents working in academia and medicine. Her early life was spent living in Europe and the United States. [6]
Long has conducted many clinical trials in melanoma, including adjuvant and metastatic melanoma.[ clarification needed ][ citation needed ] Long has also researched immuno-oncology, which she says is the ‘penicillin moment’ which will be able to turn cancers into ‘treatable conditions’. [7] She has focussed on immuno-oncology in melanoma and targeted therapies.[ citation needed ] She also developed, and is in charge of, the treat-excise-analyse-melanoma (TEAM) program, which works on mechanisms of drug sensitivity and resistance. [8]
According to MIA's CEO Matthew Browne, 'Hardly a week goes by without a melanoma patient or their family expressing their gratitude for Professor Long’s ground-breaking research and clinical trials which have afforded them or their loved ones valuable extra time, and in many cases, a new chance at life.' 'She is a true role model for all young Australians, particularly young women, who may be working towards a career in science and medicine.' [9] Two babies have been named after the MIA and Long. [10]
Martine J. Piccart-Gebhart is a Belgian medical oncologist. She is a professor of oncology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and scientific director at the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, Belgium. She is also a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine.
The Cancer Institute NSW Premier's Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research are the premier awards ceremony for the cancer research sector in NSW. Now in its tenth year, the event honours the achievements of the individuals and teams that work across the cancer research sector to lessen the impact of cancer for the people of NSW.
Charles L. Sawyers is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator who holds the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). HOPP is a program created in 2006 that comprises researchers from many disciplines to bridge clinical and laboratory discoveries.
The Melanoma Institute Australia is a non-profit organization based at the Poche Centre in North Sydney, Australia which focuses on prevention of and cure for melanoma through research, treatment and education programs. The institute is affiliated with The University of Sydney and St Vincent’s and Mater Health Sydney. It relies on funding from individuals, organisations and government grants.
Pamela J. Russell was an Australian academic researcher of immunology, bladder and prostate research. Russell was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia (AM) for her research on prostate and bladder cancer in 2003.
Michelle Haber is an Australian cancer researcher in the field of childhood cancer research.
Alan Stuart Coates is an Australian professor of clinical oncology, medical researcher and administrator. He was the inaugural CEO of the Cancer Council Australia (1998–2006), former president of the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia (COSA), and co-chair of the St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference. He was also the first non-American to be elected to the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
J. William Harbour is an American ophthalmologist, ocular oncologist and cancer researcher. He is Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He previously served as the vice chair and director of ocular oncology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and associate director for basic science at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.
Carl H. June is an American immunologist and oncologist. He is currently the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his research on T cell therapies for the treatment of several forms of cancers. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Richard Anthony Scolyer is an Australian pathologist. He is a senior staff specialist in tissue pathology and diagnostic oncology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, co-medical director at the Melanoma Institute Australia, and Cojoint professor at the University of Sydney.
Elizabeth M. Jaffee is an American oncologist specializing in pancreatic cancer and immunotherapy.
Lorenzo Galluzzi is an Italian and French cell biologist best known for his experimental and conceptual contributions to the fields of cell death, autophagy, tumor metabolism and tumor immunology.
Richard Malcolm Marais is Director of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Manchester Institute and Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Manchester.
Maria Kavallaris is an Australian scientist, based at the University of New South Wales' Children's Cancer Institute, where she is best known for her contributions to the field of cancer research. On 25 January 2019, Kavallaris was appointed a member of the Order of Australia.
Miram Merad is a French-Algerian professor in Cancer immunology and the Director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute (PrIISM) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York, NY. She is the corecipient of the 2018 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic Immunology and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
Andrew Victor Biankin is a Scotland-based Australian clinician-scientist, best known for his work on enabling precision oncology in learning healthcare systems by integrating discovery, preclinical and clinical development to accelerate novel therapeutic strategies, and developing standardised pan-cancer assays for use by healthcare systems and researchers worldwide.
Sarah Coupland is an Australian-born pathologist and professor who is the George Holt Chair in Pathology at the University of Liverpool. Coupland is an active clinical scientist whose research focuses on the molecular genetics of cancers, with particular interests in uveal melanoma, conjunctival melanoma, intraocular and ocular adnexal lymphomas and CNS lymphoma. Coupland is also an NHS Honorary Consultant Histopathologist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. Since 2006, Coupland has been head of the Liverpool Ocular Oncology Research Group; from which she runs a multidisciplinary oncology research group focussing on Uveal melanoma, based in the Department of Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine at the University of Liverpool. Her research laboratory is currently located in the Institute of Translational Medicine From April 2014 to December 2019, Coupland was also Director of the North West Cancer Research Centre, @UoL. In both 2019 and 2020, Coupland was included on the 'Pathology Powerlist' on The Pathologist website.
Christine M. Lovly is an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University. Her research involves the development of novel treatment strategies for ALK positive lung cancer.
Dr. Jessamy Tiffen is an Australian Scientist and senior researcher in the Melanoma Immunology and Oncology Program at the Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology at the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Her work primarily focuses on fundamental cell biology, examining the transformation of normal cells into cancerous ones and their responses to different treatments.
Monica Bertagnolli is an American surgical oncologist and the 17th director of the National Institutes of Health. She previously served as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to her governmental positions, she worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and was the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.