Dr Abhijit Pal specialises in Phase 1 cancer trials and thoracic malignancies. He completed a Phase 1 trials fellowship at the Drug Development Unit, Royal Marsden Hospital in London from 2019 – 2020. He was awarded a PhD in 2023 through the University of Sydney (supervised by Professor Frances Boyle), looking at informed consent for Phase 1 trials and ways to improve the representation of patients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds on to cancer clinical trials.

Initially training as a nurse and working in Western Australia, he went to Oxford, UK in 2007 where he commenced his career in clinical trials. Returning to Australia in 2010, he worked at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre as a Senior Research Nurse and Team Leader before changing his career to Program Management at the VCCC Alliance, focusing on clinical research. Duncan currently oversees the Programs of Clinical Trial Innovations and Accelerating Novel Therapies.

Dr Lisa Eckstein was previously senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Tasmania, where she chaired the Tasmania Health and Medical Human Research Ethics Committee. She has published on the regulation of clinical trials, genomic privacy, and consent.