Chair 

Professor John Zalcberg AO
Medical Oncologist and Clinician Scientist, Bayside Health (Alfred); Professor of Cancer Research, Monash University

Professor Zalcberg is immediate past Head of the Cancer Research Program in the School of Public Health at Monash University, providing academic leadership to numerous clinical quality registries. He also held the inaugural Tony Charlton Chair in Cancer Research at the Alfred Hospital and Monash University, prior to stepping down from both positions in June 2023. Prior to this appointment, he was Director of the Division of Cancer Medicine at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. His research interests include quality of care and drug development for patients with GI cancer – an area in which he continues to practice. In that context, he is co-lead of the Australian Biliary Cancer Guidelines project. He has published over 450 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is also a current member of the Boards of ICON, All.Can Australia and PRAXIS Australia.

Speakers

Professor John Zalcberg AO
Medical Oncologist and Clinician Scientist, Bayside Health (Alfred); Professor of Cancer Research, Monash University

Dr Vivek Rathi  MD, MSc, FRCPA
Medical Director, LifeStrands Genomics Australia

Dr Vivek Rathi is the Medical Director of LifeStrands Genomics Australia, a NATA-accredited laboratory specialising in cancer genomics and offering a comprehensive suite of advanced NGS and conventional molecular tests. After obtaining his FRCPA in 2012, he served for eight years as a Staff Specialist at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne before joining Monash Health in early 2020 as Director of Diagnostic Genomics. In 2022, Dr. Rathi oversaw the establishment of LifeStrands Genomics Australia. Vivek is also the current chief examiner at the RCPA for molecular pathology certification of anatomical pathologists.

Ms Melanie Regan   RN BHSc GradDip Cancer Care MN
Special Projects Manager, Pancare Foundation

Melanie Regan has cancer nursing experience across clinical, policy, program management and research settings. Melanie has worked in metropolitan Melbourne as well as regional and rural Victoria. Clinically, she has a generalist background, her research portfolio profiles her interest and expertise in supportive care, she has managed projects with the integrated cancer services and now with Pancare. Melanie has postgraduate qualifications in cancer care, breast care and a Master’s degree that examined care coordination. Currently, Melanie works as a project manager at Pancare Foundation working across government funded projects.

Associate Professor Charles Pilgrim   MBBS (Hons), FRACS, PhD, FACS
Consultant Surgeon, Bayside Health (Alfred) and Peninsula University Hospital

A/Prof Charles Pilgrim works as a consultant surgeon at The Alfred and Cabrini hospitals in Melbourne, as well as Frankston Public and Peninsula Private hospitals on the Mornington Peninsula.

He is an Associate Professor of Surgery at The Alfred, School of Translational Medicine, Monash University and Associate Professor at the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine, Monash University. His main research interests are in clinical quality registries and population level outcome data for pancreas and other cancers. He leads an MRFF funded national trial on synoptic reporting of CT scans for pancreas cancers (awarded 2022) and is on the steering committee for the Upper GI Cancer Registry and the clinical lead for the Biliary Module.

His PhD at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre investigated the effects of chemotherapy on the liver following which he completed a fellowship in surgical oncology for liver, bile duct and pancreas cancers at the Medical College of Wisconsin USA. He is also an active military and trauma surgeon with the Australian Army having deployed on operational duty to Afghanistan and Iraq.