A professor who was crowned joint n of the Year has revealed he is cancer-free after undergoing a high-risk, world-first treatment that is based off his own research.
Professor Richard Scolyer was diagnosed with incurable grade 4 brain cancer following a seizure in Poland last year.
Determined to overcome the impossible, the father-of-three decided to adapt a treatment he had developed to treat melanoma and use it on his own condition.
Prof Scolyer on Tuesday revealed there was no recurrence of his disease after becoming the first brain cancer patient to have pre-surgery combination immunotherapy.
Professor Richard Scolyer was diagnosed with incurable grade 4 brain cancer following a seizure in Poland last year
‘My latest MRI brain scan shows no recurrence 10 months since my glioblastoma presented with a seizure in Poland. Median time to recurrence is 6 months,’ he wrote on Facebook.
‘I’m extremely hopeful that the novel neoadjuvant combination immunotherapy I’ve had & the scientific changes we demonstrated in my tumour post versus pre immunotherapy are being translated into clinical benefit!
‘I’d be thrilled & very proud if this novel approach makes a difference for me & future brain cancer patients.’
Professor Scolyer and his colleague and joint n of the Year, Professor Georgina Long, have developed a number of world-leading treatments following their extensive research in immunotherapy.
Their pioneering treatment approach activates a melanoma patient’s immune system – as opposed to surgery and chemo or radiotherapies – meaning the malignant condition is now curable.
They’d found that for patients with melanoma, treatment was much more effective if immunotherapy had been done before the tumour was removed, as opposed to after.
The research encouraged Professor Scolyer to try the same method on his own brain cancer, making him the first in the world to do so.
Professor Scolyer and his colleague and joint n of the Year, Professor Georgina Long, (pictured together with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese) have developed a number of world-leading treatments following their extensive research in immunotherapy
Prof Scolyer thanked Prof Long for her help in ‘devising and facilitating this superb approach’.
It didn’t take long for Prof Scolyer to agree after she suggested they try the melanoma treatment on brain cancer.
But other specialists were not convinced about the treatment given it’s ‘high risk’ and not ‘standard therapy’.
‘I’m only one patient. To really know whether something like this works, you have to do it as part of a clinical trial in a group of patients and I know the data we’ve generated has really excited the field, and there are people working around the world to develop a clinical trial,’ he told Sky News.
He added he was lucky not to have suffered any side effects so far.
The average survival rate for those with a glioblastoma tumour is around 14 months.
Professor Scolyer and Professor Long’s work in melanoma treatment saw them crowned as the 2024 ns of the Year in January.
They are also co-medical directors of the Melanoma Institute .
‘My latest MRI brain scan shows no recurrence 10 months since my glioblastoma presented with a seizure in Poland. Median time to recurrence is 6 months,’ he wrote on Facebook (pictured, Prof Scolyer’s brain scans)