News Club Interview: “In some ways, I feel guilty"

Richard Scolyer is a ground-breaker…

Professor Richard Scolyer AO is our 2024 joint Australian of the Year alongside his colleague and friend Professor Georgina Long AO. He’s a pathologist and co-medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia. Less than a decade ago, advanced melanoma was fatal, but thanks in part to their work in immunotherapy, it has become a curable disease. 

Incredible. 

However, in June 2023, Richard was diagnosed with incurable Grade 4 brain cancer with an average survival rate of 12-14 months. It has now been 18 months since his diagnosis… 

Why? No one knows. It could be luck, or it could be because of his world-first approach to treatment. When diagnosed, Richard, Georgina and the immunotherapy team decided to trial - with Richard as the guinea pig - a pre-surgery combination immunotherapy, a personalised cancer vaccine, and Richard opted not to have chemotherapy.

What this means is that he is an experiment playing out before our very eyes. 

Throughout our conversation, we talked about science. But more so about the experience of being Richard.  

This is our final News Club interview for 2024. And I must say, it was quite a way to finish. Not only was it a huge honour to meet Richard - he is instantly warm and generous -  but naturally, it’s an emotional one. 

Thank you to everyone who has come on the News Club ride this year. As I said when we started, my focus was to bring you quality conversations that leave you with something thoughtful, something that challenges and always, something that informs. 

Catch you in 2025.

You can listen to the conversation here or tune in on YouTube - and hit subscribe while you’re at it.

Highlight #1: On receiving experimental and world-first treatment

Richard Scolyer: In some ways, I feel guilty that I've had this opportunity that no one else has had. You know, it may or may not work, but when I hear about other people's stories and the very sad journeys that they're going through… Ultimately we need to get a clinical trial up and running. I know people are working towards doing that. As I say, it's not my area of expertise to start a clinical trial, the oncologists do that. And there's a lot of work that needs to go into developing protocols, the ethics approval, and funding to get it off the ground. But I know people are working very hard to make that happen. I hope it's not too far away, but I don't know when that's going to be.

Highlight #2: On being a cancer researcher with cancer

Richard Scolyer: Understanding the science and medicine is really helpful in some ways. The process you're going through, what the disease is, what the outcomes are, the treatments, investigations, and all that, you know that. So that makes it easier. But I guess the other side of the coin is when you know the likely outcomes, so that hope side of it, for me anyway, took a little bit of time to be able to feel that hope.

Highlight #3: On why his work in immunotherapy is so exciting

Richard Scolyer: When I started working in melanoma 25 years ago, it was that if you detected melanoma early and treated it appropriately with surgical excision, most people would be cured of their melanoma. What we didn't have was any effective drug therapies that worked if the melanoma had spread around your body. So most people would be dead within a year. The 5 year survival rate was less than 5%.

But because of discoveries that have been made in immunotherapy, now the 5 year survival rate is 57%. And we think most of those people have been cured. So it's been truly incredible to be part of that journey.

🎄It’s not too early for some Christmas picks…

We’re here to help this Squizmas with gift ideas for those you love…or maybe a treat just for you:

🌿Skipper - Eco-friendly home and body care, just add water. Build your own bundle and save up to $120.

🐱Michu - Looking for a gift for your furry feline friend or your pet obsessed bestie, these guys are the place to start.

🍷Naked Wines - Curate 12 bottles of Aussie and Kiwi wines and get $100 off your first case. Effortless gifting, sorted.

_{*If you buy products using these links, The Squiz could get a little commission.}

Show us some love…

If you’ve been enjoying News Club and our interview series, the best way you can support us is by sharing us with your friends/family/colleagues/boss. Share your unique link below, and we’ll know you sent them our way. Merci buckets.

Copy and paste this link and share it around:

https://newsclub.thesquiz.com.au/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER