09/06/2026
Cancer Council Victoria is deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Richard Scolyer AO – a passionate, courageous and visionary researcher.
After completing medical school in Tasmania, Professor Scolyer embarked on the decade-and-a-half journey to become a pathologist. His path led him to the Melanoma Institute Australia.
When he started, the only treatment for melanoma was surgery – more than 90 per cent of people with metastasised melanoma died within five years. But Professor Scolyer, alongside his colleague Professor Georgina Long, transformed treatment options for advanced melanoma by trialling the impacts of immunotherapy.
Today the survival rate for people with stage 4 melanoma is 55 per cent after five years.
In 2023, he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer and became patient zero in a world‑first experimental treatment, using insights from melanoma research to guide new approaches for glioblastoma.
In an open letter, Professor Scolyer reflected upon his life’s work as well as his own cancer diagnosis sharing “perhaps the greatest lesson to come from these last three years is that cancer does not define us. It may be the current road we are traveling, but it is not our entire journey.”
If you or someone you love needs support, call Cancer Council on 13 11 20.
