Founding Members and Advisors
Sammy Bedoui (PDI)
Jonathan Cebon (ONJCRI)
Dale Godfrey (PDI)
Sean Grimmond (UOM)
Ricky Johnstone (Peter Mac)
Thomas Kay (SVI)
Sharon Lewin (PDI)
Fabienne Mackay (OM)
Grant McArthur (Peter Mac)
David Ritchie (RMH)
Andrew Roberts (WEHI)
Joe Trapani (Peter Mac)
2025 Organising Committee
Prof Dolcetti is a clinician scientist with MD specializations in Oncology and Clinical Immunology with >20 y research experience in cancer biology and immunology. As Director of the Cancer Bio-Immunotherapy Division at the CRO-National Cancer Institute of Aviano, Italy, he performed cutting-edge science on the pathogenesis of infection-driven tumours and developed novel immune-based therapies for lymphomas, breast cancer and melanoma. He designed and co-led clinical trials of immunotherapy for cancer patients, particularly those with breast cancer. In 2015, he relocated to Brisbane as Chair in Cancer Medicine, Diamantina Institute, Univ. of Queensland, where he coordinated the Cancer Immunotherapy Program, developed new cancer vaccines and improved combination immunotherapies. In 2020, he took the role of Head, Clinical and Translational Immunotherapy as joint appointment at the Sir Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Univ. of Melbourne and Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre. His major research contributions are: demonstration in pre-immunotherapy era that the good prognosis of MSI-H colon cancer patients was significantly associated with high numbers of activated CD8+ TILs, providing the rationale for subsequent adoption of immune checkpoint inhibitors; development of “off-the-shelf” idiotypic vaccines for lymphomas; development of a therapeutic antibody and an innovative adoptive immunotherapy for EBV-driven tumours; identification of immunological correlates of pathological complete response in breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant immuno-chemotherapy; development of a nanoemulsion-based vaccination platform delivering antigens to cross-presenting dendritic cells in vivo. He has >250 publications in peer-reviewed international journals with >10,000 citations. He had the privilege to be the President of the Italian Society for Cancer Research in 2012-13.
Ash completed his PhD in 2002, on Salmonella pathogenesis with Prof Gordon Dougan at Imperial College, London. During his first post-doc at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, he examined cellular immune responses to the gram-negative PC3 bacterial pathogen, Burkholderia pseudomallei. In 2006, Ash moved to QIMR, Brisbane, to study cellular immune responses to protozoan parasites, Leishmania and Plasmodium. He received his first NHMRC grant in 2010 and started his own lab at QIMR Berghofer in 2012 as an NHMRC Career Development Fellow. In 2020, he moved his lab to The Doherty Institute and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne. His current interests are to employ single-cell genomics and computational approaches to examine T and B lymphocyte biology in experimental and clinical settings.
Associate Professor Ashraful Haque
(President 2025)
Peter Doherty Institute
Prof Riccardo Dolcetti
(Vice-President 2025)
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Dr Lorraine O’Reilly
(Past President)
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Dr. Alex Barrow
University of Melbourne
Dr Campbell completed her PhD in Immunology 2018 under the supervision of Dr Aisling Dunne and Dr Jean Fletcher at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). Her PhD research focused on immunoregulation by the anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory enzyme, Heme Oxygenase 1 (HO-1), in human immune cells. In January 2019, she commenced her postdoctoral research position with Prof Paul Hertzog at the Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases (CiiiD) at the Hudson Institute, and in 2022 was promoted to the role of Research Scientist. Since joining CiiiD, her research has been centred on type I interferons (IFNs) pleiotropic cytokines with well-characterised functions in anti-viral and anti-cancer immunity. Her primary research focus is currently investigating the potential of interferon epsilon (IFNε), a unique type I IFN discovered by Prof Hertzog’s lab, as a treatment for ovarian cancer. Her work in this role has contributed to an upcoming original research article (under revision, Nature), ongoing drug development with industry partners at the Hudson Institute, and the award of an NHMRC Ideas Grant to Prof Hertzog. Furthermore, during this time she has led other ongoing research including studies on the innate immune response to COVID-19, characterisation of immunoregulation by interferons in the peritoneal cavity, and identification of novel protein interactions during interferon signalling. Her main laboratory expertise lies in multicolour flow cytometry, cell culture, animal handling and pre-clinical modelling of ovarian cancer.
Dr Nicole Campbell
Hudson Institute of Medical Research
Dr Eissmann received his PhD in cancer biology from the Goethe University (Frankfurt) in 2012. He came to Australia for Postdoctoral research at the Walter & Eliza Hall institute then joined the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute in 2015. He is interested in cytokine signalling networks in the tumor microenvironment of gastro-intestinal cancers and has established novel GI cancer mouse models presenting all disease stages, enabling research on the role of cytokine signalling in immune cell infiltrates on disease progression and therapy responses. Now, his work focuses now on understanding the cytokine-driven immunosuppressive immune environment’s role in immune checkpoint blockade efficacies in gastric and colorectal cancers.
Dr Moritz Eissmann
Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute
Dr. Danika Hill
Monash University
Dr. Lauren Holz
Doherty Institute
Dr. Charis Teh
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Dr Julian Vivian
St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
Dr. Rhiannon Werder
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute