Latest news with #PeterMacCallumCancerCentre
The Age
29-07-2025
- Health
- The Age
Science fraudster shows independent research watchdog a necessity
Professor Mark Smyth was once considered one of this country's leading cancer researchers. Yet as The Age has reported in the past week, alarming aspects of his work have put into question both his research and the manner in which complaints about his work have been investigated. At core is this: integrity and trust. The Age revealed that while Smyth was working at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, he faced inquiries into falsifying research data. A preliminary investigation found he had a case to answer based on claims of falsified data. That prompted a second probe by the University of Melbourne, which cleared him. Smyth left Peter Mac in 2013 after being hired by leading research institute QIMR Berghofer in Brisbane in 2012. At QIMR, members of his lab team raised concerns about his practices. He was investigated twice, secretly, and no problems were detected. Whistleblowers went looking elsewhere for help. They approached the Office of the Chief Scientist and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which oversees research integrity. The whistleblowers were referred back to QIMR. Then, finally, four years ago, amid the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic, an external independent investigation for the institute found research misconduct by Smyth. He left. This circuitous route of investigation is unacceptable, as is the fact that the report has never been released. The Age 's reports have shown an unhealthy nexus between taxpayer funding for institutions, self-interest and a system ill-equipped to manage complaints. Smyth was protected, it appeared to those complaining, partly because he was a cash cow, having attracted more than $42 million in taxpayer funding for his projects over his career. A staff member at QIMR said of Smyth's work practices: 'Mark was bringing money to the institute, so the institute protected Mark.' Who then protects the integrity of the science?
News.com.au
25-07-2025
- News.com.au
Ryan Cho: Melbourne surgeon allegedly secretly recorded hospital staff using toilet, showering
A Victorian surgeon has been accused of secretly recording hospital staff using the bathroom after police allegedly uncovered 4500 intimate images and videos on his devices. Ryan Cho, whose medical licence was suspended earlier this month, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday evening. The 28-year-old was initially arrested on July 10 after staff at the Austin Hospital allegedly located a mobile phone recording in an employee bathroom. The court was told he was charged with stalking and using an optical surveillance device and bailed by police. But Mr Cho was rearrested on Friday after police allegedly located 4500 intimate videos and photos categorised and labelled on a laptop hard drive seized that contained 10,374 total files. He was charged with five new offences – three counts of producing intimate images, one count using an optical surveillance device and one count failing to comply with direction to assist. Called to give evidence, Senior Constable Neral Baykur told the court Mr Cho was allegedly identified through an internal Austin Hospital investigation after a mesh bag containing a mobile phone, powerbank and clothes was located in a staff toilet. She said three hours of video footage allegedly located on the phone captured seven minutes of Mr Cho setting up the device before five people used the toilet over the following 40 minutes. Senior Constable Baykur said police allegedly identified folders believed to represent the Austin Hospital, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She said videos allegedly date between 2021 and 2025 and capture staff using toilet or shower facilities. 'The accused has named at least 460 victims in total,' she said. 'However we have not yet confirmed 'yes those are the victims'.' Senior Constable Baykur said another 5222 files allegedly located in a folder titled 'other' appears to be a residential setting. The officer strongly opposed bail, alleging Mr Cho was a flight risk, had limited ties to the community as a Singapore national who could no longer work in his field and could interfere with witnesses. She agreed there was likely the potential for further charges if additional alleged victims are identified. Senior Constable Baykur said the accused man's alleged actions appeared to be 'calculated and obsessed', requiring enormous amounts of time. She told the court the allegations were likely to have a 'significant impact' on the community, noting Austin Hospital staff are now fearful to use internal facilities. The officer said the alleged material from the Austin Hospital appeared to have been created in 2025, Peter MacCallum Centre from 2024, Royal Melbourne Hospital in 2024 and 2025 and a fourth folder titled 'Med' was from 2022 to 2023. Mr Cho's lawyer, George Balot, applied for bail for his client noting his parents had arrived into the country, were offering a $10,000 bail guarantee and would monitor his bail compliance. Mr Balot told the court his client had commenced treatment with both a psychologist and a sexologist after his initial arrest. 'It is conceded it is a strong prosecution case,' he said. 'What we say Your Honour is the risk of reoffending … can be managed and it can be managed by special conditions.' Mr Balot said his client had complied with bail for the past two weeks 'impeccably', was prepared to forgo access to a mobile phone and would be strictly monitored by his parents if released. 'They're mortified by the allegations and they want to make sure he's treated as soon as possible and not in a custodial setting,' he said. Mr Ballot said Mr Cho had enrolled in a program for alleged sex offenders set to begin in August and noted the charges would be contested. The court was told Mr Cho became a permanent resident of Australia in 2017 where he completed his doctorate in medicine at Monash University in 2022. Refusing bail, Magistrate James Henderson said he was not satisfied the risk posed by Mr Cho could be mitigated with conditions. 'The allegations at this stage are of course serious allegations they relate to a huge amount of intimate videos,' he said. 'There is said to be 10,000 files in existence, there has been careful classification of those files said to contain intimate depictions of … people toileting and showering in staff facilities without their knowledge.' In a statement, Victoria Police said investigators had identified several additional hospitals between 2020 and 2025 as workplaces of interest. 'Police have begun the process of contacting the additional hospitals and those potentially impacted during the time of the man's employment. This process is due to take some time,' a spokeswoman said. Mr Cho is expected to return to court in November 2025.
The Age
07-06-2025
- Health
- The Age
Out of the ashes, a new treatment for a hidden cancer
Keratinocytes, like all healthy cells, carefully follow the instructions coded into your DNA. But when DNA is damaged, most-often through the photons in sunlight smashing into it, the instructions can be garbled. These new instructions can cause the cell to start dividing uncontrollably, eventually forming a cancerous tumour. Loading CSCCs typically appear on the most sun-exposed parts of our skin – the hands, the neck, the scalp or ears – as a firm bump or scaly sore. Bailey recalls 'a scabby sort of thing on my head'. As soon as his doctor saw it, he cut it out. Surgical excision, and sometimes additional radiation therapy, is the typical treatment for CSCC. In more than 90 per cent of cases, simple treatment is entirely curative. 'You cut them out, you send it off, you stitch it up, and they are cured,' says McCormack. But occasionally, the cancer has spread before it is spotted. Of every 100 cases, one to three people will die, as the cancer grows back in their lungs or livers or bones. Deaths from non-melanoma skin cancers have almost doubled in Australia in the past 20 years; globally, CSCC causes more deaths than melanoma does, despite its lack of name-recognition. About 70 per cent of us will get a non-melanoma skin cancer in our lives – hence the high number of deaths, even though the disease itself has a relatively low mortality rate. 'It's so common, people tend to trivialise it a bit,' says the University of the Sunshine Coast's Associate Professor Andrew Dettrick, who has published papers on CSCC. 'Five per cent does not sound like a lot, but it is when you times it by 200,000 people.' A new standard of treatment for an invisible disease If a doctor cuts out the tumour, and then uses beams of radiation to kill any cells they cannot reach, why does cancer sometimes come back? 'They have got microscopic disease left, either in the area that's been treated, or it has already spread. And we don't have any way of knowing that,' says Professor Danny Rischin, head of research for head and neck cancer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The focus of Rischin's career has been on stopping that cancer coming back. In 2018, he co-authored a study testing whether Carboplatin, a chemotherapy drug, could prevent relapse. Loading Like many experiments, it did not work. The drug did not improve survival. But scientists often learn more from failure than success. Rischin's team were able to isolate a subgroup of CSCC patients within the trial who had certain features that put them at a dramatically higher rate of cancer recurrence. 'They were in need of better treatment,' he says. For this group, Rischin's team turned to one of the medicines that has revolutionised cancer treatment in the past decade: checkpoint inhibitors. Our immune system needs to run certain checks to ensure it is attacking an enemy, not one of our own cells. Cancer often takes advantage of this, generating its own codes to pass the checks. Using genetically modified antibodies, scientists in the past two decades have learned to block our own immune system's checkpoints. 'It unmasks the cancer cell, so your immune system can see it again,' says Dettrick. Perhaps a souped-up immune system could ferret out the microscopic cancers the surgeons could not? In a study sponsored by the therapy's manufacturer, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Rischin's team randomised 415 patients, who had been treated for CSCC but had a risk of recurrence, between immunotherapy and a placebo: 87 per cent of patients on the therapy were still disease-free after 24 months, compared to 64 per cent on the placebo. About 10 per cent of patients getting the therapy had severe side effects, and one died – consistent with the normal side effects from immunotherapy.
Sydney Morning Herald
07-06-2025
- Health
- Sydney Morning Herald
Out of the ashes, a new treatment for a hidden cancer
Keratinocytes, like all healthy cells, carefully follow the instructions coded into your DNA. But when DNA is damaged, most-often through the photons in sunlight smashing into it, the instructions can be garbled. These new instructions can cause the cell to start dividing uncontrollably, eventually forming a cancerous tumour. Loading CSCCs typically appear on the most sun-exposed parts of our skin – the hands, the neck, the scalp or ears – as a firm bump or scaly sore. Bailey recalls 'a scabby sort of thing on my head'. As soon as his doctor saw it, he cut it out. Surgical excision, and sometimes additional radiation therapy, is the typical treatment for CSCC. In more than 90 per cent of cases, simple treatment is entirely curative. 'You cut them out, you send it off, you stitch it up, and they are cured,' says McCormack. But occasionally, the cancer has spread before it is spotted. Of every 100 cases, one to three people will die, as the cancer grows back in their lungs or livers or bones. Deaths from non-melanoma skin cancers have almost doubled in Australia in the past 20 years; globally, CSCC causes more deaths than melanoma does, despite its lack of name-recognition. About 70 per cent of us will get a non-melanoma skin cancer in our lives – hence the high number of deaths, even though the disease itself has a relatively low mortality rate. 'It's so common, people tend to trivialise it a bit,' says the University of the Sunshine Coast's Associate Professor Andrew Dettrick, who has published papers on CSCC. 'Five per cent does not sound like a lot, but it is when you times it by 200,000 people.' A new standard of treatment for an invisible disease If a doctor cuts out the tumour, and then uses beams of radiation to kill any cells they cannot reach, why does cancer sometimes come back? 'They have got microscopic disease left, either in the area that's been treated, or it has already spread. And we don't have any way of knowing that,' says Professor Danny Rischin, head of research for head and neck cancer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The focus of Rischin's career has been on stopping that cancer coming back. In 2018, he co-authored a study testing whether Carboplatin, a chemotherapy drug, could prevent relapse. Loading Like many experiments, it did not work. The drug did not improve survival. But scientists often learn more from failure than success. Rischin's team were able to isolate a subgroup of CSCC patients within the trial who had certain features that put them at a dramatically higher rate of cancer recurrence. 'They were in need of better treatment,' he says. For this group, Rischin's team turned to one of the medicines that has revolutionised cancer treatment in the past decade: checkpoint inhibitors. Our immune system needs to run certain checks to ensure it is attacking an enemy, not one of our own cells. Cancer often takes advantage of this, generating its own codes to pass the checks. Using genetically modified antibodies, scientists in the past two decades have learned to block our own immune system's checkpoints. 'It unmasks the cancer cell, so your immune system can see it again,' says Dettrick. Perhaps a souped-up immune system could ferret out the microscopic cancers the surgeons could not? In a study sponsored by the therapy's manufacturer, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Rischin's team randomised 415 patients, who had been treated for CSCC but had a risk of recurrence, between immunotherapy and a placebo: 87 per cent of patients on the therapy were still disease-free after 24 months, compared to 64 per cent on the placebo. About 10 per cent of patients getting the therapy had severe side effects, and one died – consistent with the normal side effects from immunotherapy.
Irish Examiner
23-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Examiner
Working Life: Radiation oncology is like virtual surgery, where you deliver targeted treatment
Professor Gerry Hanna, Marie Curie chair of clinical oncology at TCD, and vice clinical lead, Cancer Trials Ireland 'I'm originally from Newcastle, Co Down. I completed my training in hospitals in Belfast and Amsterdam, and took up a consultant post in Belfast. I was then appointed as director of radiation oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia's largest cancer centre. All my family — my wife Suzie, a GP, and children Alice, Patrick and James — moved there in 2018. 'We loved Peter Mac and Australia, but missed friends and family in Ireland and came back in 2021. I love being home. It's a good opportunity to build on our cancer infrastructure and keep Ireland on the map. 'When I was a junior doctor, I was drawn to trying to turn things around for people with cancer. It's a very holistic specialty, often you are supporting patients for long periods or maybe curing them or extending their lives. I wanted to practice a form of medicine that was people-centred. 'Radiation oncology is like virtual surgery, where you deliver targeted treatment without opening people up. Prof. Gerry Hanna, Vice Clinical Lead at Cancer Trials Ireland: "The hard part of the job is when patients relapse, or when you can't offer a treatment to change the course of the disease in any meaningful way." Picture: Moya Nolan 'The hard part of the job is when patients relapse, or when you can't offer a treatment to change the course of the disease in any meaningful way. This can be very distressing. But overall oncology can be a very uplifting specialty to work in. 'I wear a number of hats. I'm a consultant in radiation oncology at the St Luke's radiation oncology network and the Trinity St James Cancer Institute. "I'm also vice clinical lead at Clinical Trials Ireland, an organisation that sponsors and manages Irish-led cancer trials, as well as working with international research groups and global pharma companies. 'Clinical trials are crucial for examining new treatments and for assessing their safety and efficacy. They offer patients an opportunity to try new treatments that may improve their outcomes, such as a person's survival from cancer or reducing the risk of cancer coming back. 'Most patients who take part in clinical trials do so because they know it will help patients in the future. 'Clinical trials are also really important for hospitals, as they bring higher levels of oversight, and this high quality of care creates an ethos of excellence among clinical teams.' As part of its 'Just Ask' campaign, Cancer Trials Ireland is encouraging people with cancer undergoing treatment to 'just ask' their doctors about the clinical trial options open to them. More details:
