Targeting the host in viral infection and malignancy

Speaker bio:

Mark is a haematologist and clinical triallist with a focus on developing new therapies to prevent and treat virally mediated malignancies. He trained in Melbourne at St Vincent’s Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and then undertook his doctoral studies at the U.S. National Cancer Institute before joining their faculty. He returned to Australia in late 2015, and from 2017 led the Therapeutic and Vaccine Research Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. 

Mark’s work lies at the intersection of infection, immunity and malignancy, and he has led over 30 academic trials from phase I to III across those fields. His work on viral malignancies has provided seminal insights into their pathogenesis while influencing guidelines treatment globally, including co-leading development of an oral immunomodulator for Kaposi sarcoma which led to the first new drug approval for KS in over 20 years. He is a strong advocate for inclusion of historically marginalised groups in clinical trials, and has a long-standing commitment to sustainable trial conduct in resource limited settings, having led capacity building efforts in West Africa and Indonesia for the U.S National Institutes of Health (NIH). At the invitation of the NIH he led a series of trials of COVID-19 immunotherapies conducted in over 20 countries during the current pandemic.