Professor Richard Scolyer AO on driving change

A teacher at Launceston’s Riverside High School wrote in Richard Scolyer’s yearbook: Reach for the sky, and you'll get to the treetops; reach for the treetops, and you won't get off the ground.

“I think it's good advice,’ Scolyer said. ‘Be ambitious. Think big and be bold. Contribute to society and enjoy it. Take chances.”

The 2024 Australian of the Year is proud of his Tasmanian connections and upbringing.

“It’s a special place,” he said.

Scolyer studied a Bachelor of Medical Science and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Tasmania. After four years of clinical medicine, he went on to specialise in pathology, completing his training in 2000. He has worked in Sydney ever since, with his choice of specialty having impacts across the globe.

Together with the co-director of the Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA) and joint 2024 Australian of the Year, Professor Georgina Long AO, Scolyer’s research on melanoma has saved thousands of lives.

“Fifteen years ago, if you had advanced-stage melanoma, that’s melanoma that had spread around your body, most people would die within a year,” Scolyer said.

“Now the five-year survival rate for Stage 4 melanoma is about 55 per cent, and we think most of those people have been cured.

“This is an incredible turnaround; it's making a massive difference.”

But Scolyer stresses the importance of prevention as well as early detection to help combat what he calls Australia’s national cancer, and he and Long are pushing for a national targeted screening program.

“Roughly 95 per cent of people will be cured with simple surgical excision of their primary skin melanoma,” he said.

“Our goal at the Melanoma Institute is to get to zero deaths from melanoma.”

But there is still a way to go.

“We've got the highest incidence of melanoma anywhere in the world: One Australian gets diagnosed every 30 minutes, an Australian still dies every six hours from melanoma, and it's the commonest cancer in 20 to 39 year olds in our country,” he said.

Scolyer and Long are keen to use their Australian of the Year platform to educate people that prevention is better than cure. They remind people to slip-slop-slap, seek shade and wear sunglasses. They also urge people to “know the skin you’re in”, and to get medical advice if they notice any changes.

A year to the day that Scolyer and Long presented their research on melanoma to the National Press Club, they gave a second presentation – this time, with a very personal tone.

Scolyer had developed brain cancer, which was picked up in May 2023, a glioblastoma with a particularly poor prognosis. Treatment options hadn’t improved for twenty years.

“The average prognosis for a patient with the sort of brain cancer that I've got, if you’re over 50, is about 12 months,” Scolyer said.

Long and Scolyer decided on a radical route that Long proposed: to apply what they had learned about using immunotherapy in melanoma to the brain cancer Scolyer had. The key was using immunotherapy before the brain tumour was removed, and before any chemotherapy, which lowers the effectiveness of the immune system.

“It didn't take any convincing for me,” Scolyer said, but he knew there were risks that the treatment could shorten his life or lead to serious and permanent side effects.

So far, more than a year later, the results are remarkable, with no recurrence.

“We were able to show that there was an increase in the number of immune cells within my tumour, that they were activated immune cells, and also that the drugs I was given crossed what's called the blood brain barrier to get inside the tumour,” he said.

“I just feel so fortunate that I'm still here and still able to contribute and enjoy my life.”

But Scolyer hastens to add that this result doesn’t mean the treatment worked. He says he might just be a lucky outlier, and important work is now underway to set up clinical trials to determine whether the treatment  is effective.

Immunotherapy first used in melanoma is already being used to treat many other cancers including lung cancer, breast cancer, kidney cancer, and head and neck cancers.

But it has not all been plain sailing. Scolyer has battled with seizures from the treatment, requiring careful management. One thing that helps him stay positive is exercise.

In August this year he represented Australia in the Triathlon Multisport World Championships in Townsville with two of his children.

He had previously competed with his daughter in Spain, just before he had his brain cancer diagnosis following a seizure in Poland. He says he is fortunate the tumour was picked up then, and that his wife, also a medical doctor, was with him when he had the seizure.

His advice to young graduates? “Work is important to all of us,” he said. “We really want to make a difference ... but other things, particularly your family, but also the other things you like doing, are also important in your  in your life. Make the most of them.

“Also, be courageous, and don't just lean in, leap in. That's how you can make a difference.”