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Melanoma Update for Primary Care Clinicians

Program now available

Development of the program for the Interdisciplinary Melanoma / Skin Cancer Centres, including the comprehensive clinical care reviews of melanoma diagnostics, surgery and medical oncology have provided a unique opportunity to evolve a program that will share these sessions. Further, specifically planned training including a dermoscopy course, surgical and pathology tutorials have been planned.

Invited Speakers

We are pleased to announce that the following invited speakers will be presenting at the Melanoma Update for Primary Care Clinicians:

• Chris Allan (Australia) - Biography
  
  Dr Allan attained his primary medical degree with the University of Queensland in 1996 and his Fellowship in General Surgery with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 2006. He completed two years of subspecialty training in Breast and Endocrine Surgery at the Mater Adult Hospital in Brisbane followed by Melanoma and Soft Tissue Sarcoma Surgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Through the University of Queensland, he attained a Master of Philosophy research degree in breast cancer vaccine development and holds an academic appointment as a Senior Lecturer in Surgery. Dr Allan is a VMO Surgeon at the Mater Adult and Private Hospitals and the Princess Alexandra Hospital Melanoma Unit in Brisbane.
• Bruce Armstrong (University of Sydney) - Biography
  
  Bruce Armstrong is internationally recognised for his epidemiological research into the causes and prevention of skin cancer, melanoma and other cancers. He received the award for a lifetime of achievement in basic research into melanoma at the 6th World Congress on Melanoma in Vancouver in 2005 and the inaugural New South Wales Premier's award for Outstanding Cancer Researcher of the Year in 2006. He is a Professor of Public Health at The University of Sydney.
• Boris Bastian (University of California San Francisco)
• Fran Boyle (Australia)
• Diona Damian (Australia) - Biography
  
  Diona Damian is Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Sydney and Clinical Academic in dermatology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Her research interests focus on the role of cutaneous immunity in the causation, prevention and treatment of skin cancer.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Keith Flaherty (University of Pennsylvania) - Biography
  
  Dr. Flaherty is a medical oncologist with a focus on clinical and translational research involving therapeutics in early development. He graduated from Johns Hopkins medical school, completed residency in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and fellowship in medical oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained on faculty for 7 years. In 2009 he moved to the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center to lead the Developmental Therapeutics Program. Dr. Flaherty has been the recipient of K12, K23, RO1 and SPORE project grants from the NIH/NCI. He has been the principal investigator of numerous first-in-human trials with targeted therapies relevant to melanoma.
• Pascale Guitera (Melanoma Institute Australia) - Biography
  
  Pascale Guitera is a dermatologist from Paris, and achieved the most prestigious medal available to medical graduates (Médaille d’Argent) in 2002. She completed a MSc in gene therapy at the Genocentre of Evry in 1999. Because of this record she was awarded a fellowship in the largest Dermatology Department in Paris (Hopital Saint-Louis) and practiced there 2002-2004. Then, she was appointed as a research dermatologist at the Curie Institute, one of France’s leading scientific institutions (5 Nobel Prizes). She has completed a PhD in collaboration with the Curie Institute on instrumentations for the diagnosis of skin tumours (dermoscopy, digital monitoring, total body photography, in vivo reflectance confocal microscopy, 75MHz high frequency ultrasound, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and multiphoton microscopy) at the Sydney Melanoma Diagnostic Centre and the Department of Dermatology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. She has developed in particular the diagnosis of melanocytic lesions with  in vivo confocal microscopy1,2. She was also responsible for the Extreme High-risk clinic at the unit. Because of her achievements during her stay in RPAH, she has been awarded the Australasian College of Dermatologist Fellowship in April 2007. She is now practicing at the 2 melanoma unit locations (RPAH and North shore) and holding an academic position at Sydney University.
• Martin Haskett (Victorian Melanoma Service) - Biography
  
  Martin Haskett has been a Consultant Dermatologist at the Victorian Melanoma Service since 2002 and over the past 5 years has conducted a study to assess the efficacy and role of imiquimod cream in the management of patients with lentigo maligna. This has been particularly beneficial in the multidisciplinary setting of the VMS by ensuring that patients have had access to surgical, radiological and medical treatment options to help resolve the many clinical dilemmas produced by this form of melanoma.
  
  
  
• Angela Hong (Melanoma Institute Australia) - Biography
  A/Professor Angela Hong (MBBS, MMed, PhD, FRANZCR) is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. She completed her medical degree at University of Sydney in 1994. She then focused on radiation biology research at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre and the University of California, Davis before returning to Sydney to begin training. She was awarded the Kaye Scott prize for outstanding performance in her fellowship examination. In 2004, Dr Hong completed her PhD at the University of Sydney. Dr Hong sub-specializes in the management of skin cancer and treatment of brain tumour with Gammaknife. Her principal research interests are in the field of radiation therapy in the management of melanoma.
• Michael Hughes (Australia)
• Richard Kefford (Australia) - Biography
  
  Richard Kefford AM MB BS PhD FRACP is Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital. He is Director of the Westmead Institute for Cancer Research, and Co-Director of Research at the Melanoma Institute of Australia (MIA), incorporating Sydney Melanoma Unit. He is Chief Investigator on an NHMRC Program Grant researching the molecular biology of melanoma, with particular focus on regulation of senescence and emergence of resistance to MAPK inhibitors. He has been an investigator on over 30 Clinical Trials in melanoma and leads MIA’s involvement in a number of Phase I, II , III  and adjuvant trials of targeted anti-melanoma drugs. He is consultant to a number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
• John Kelly (Australia) - Biography
  John Kelly is a dermatologist and Head of The Victorian Melanoma Service at The Alfred in Melbourne, a multidisciplinary treatment service for melanoma. He founded the service in 1994. He holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Professor at the Monash University Department of Medicine. From 1987-2005 he also headed the Dermatology Unit at The Alfred. John undertook his Doctorate at the Melanoma Clinic, University of California, San Francisco. He maintains an active program of research in melanoma. John is on the board of the Australia and New Zealand Melanoma Trials Group and chaired the diagnosis chapter of the NHMRC Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Melanoma in Australia and New Zealand. He is a member of the Melanoma Expert Group, National Round Table for Structured Pathology Reporting of Cancer.
• Josep Malvehy (Hospital of Barcelona)
• Scott Menzies (Australia) - Biography
  
  Scott Menzies is the Director of the Sydney Melanoma Diagnostic Centre and a Professor of Medicine (Discipline of Dermatology) at the University of Sydney. He has given over 150 conference or institutional invited presentations on skin cancer, including an invited speaker for over 70 presentations at International venues. He has been, or is currently, a member of 10 skin cancer advisory committees including that which developed the Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Melanoma in Australia and New Zealand (Australian Cancer Network, NH&MRC) and is the continental representative of both the International Dermoscopy Society and the International Confocal Microscopy Working Group. He is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery. He has over 90 publications on the subject of skin cancer.
• Robyn Saw (Australia)
• Richard Scolyer (Australia) - Biography
  
  Richard Scolyer is a medical graduate of the University of Tasmania (BMedSci, MBBS). After completing clinical training in Australia and overseas, he undertook pathology training at the Canberra Hospital and at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital leading to Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia.
  
  Richard has a broad range of interests in surgical pathology and cytopathology with special interests in melanocytic pathology and soft tissue pathology. He is also interested in teaching, education and translational research (particularly in the field of melanoma). In 2006, Richard was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine by the University of Sydney for his thesis of publications on melanocytic pathology. He received a NSW Premier's Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in 2009.  Richard is also Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney, an editorial board member of the American Journal of Surgical Pathology and Associate Editor of Pathology.
• Peter Soyer (University of Queensland)
• Andrew Spillane (Australia) - Biography
  
  Andrew Spillane is Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology at The University of Sydney Northern Clinical School. He specialises in melanoma, breast cancer and soft tissue tumours. After completing his general surgical training Andrew had extensive training in surgical oncology during a fellowship at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. During that time he completed a MD thesis on soft tissue sarcomas. Andrew is actively involved in quality assurance assessment in surgery and promoting clinical trial involvement by surgeons. He is involved in clinical research on many aspects of melanoma and breast cancer management.
  
  
• John Thompson (Melanoma Institute Australia) - Biography
  
  Professor John Thompson, MBBS, BSc(Med), MD, FRACS, FACS is the Executive Director of the Melanoma Institute Australia and Professor of Melanoma and Surgical Oncology of the University of Sydney.  He is author of over 450 peer-reviewed articles and holds positions on the editorial boards of several international journals.  He is the immediate past President of the International Sentinel Node Society, Chairman of the Australian and New Zealand Melanoma Trials Group, and Chairman of the NSW Melanoma Network.  He is also a member of the Melanoma Staging Committee of the American Joint Committee on Cancer.  His principal current research interests are in the fields of lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy for melanoma, and regional chemotherapy techniques for limb tumours which cannot be treated surgically. 
• Hensin Tsao (Harvard Medical School)

Scientific Program Committee

• Jonathan Stretch (Co-Convenor)
• John Thompson (Co-Convenor)
• Diona Damian (Co-Convenor)
• Bruce Armstrong
• Rod Dunbar
• Pascale Guitera
• Nikolas Haass
• Nicholas Hayward
• Peter Hersey
• Richard Kefford
• Graham Mann
• Scott Menzies
• Richard Scolyer
• Graham Stevens