How Richard Scolyer made his mark in melanoma research

Richard Scolyer, the renowned Australian pathologist who died on Sunday at the age of 59, was instrumental in lowering melanoma deaths across the country.

"Whatever happens, I feel like there will be a legacy from what Georgina, our team and I have tried to do," the former Australian of the Year wrote in his 2024 memoir, Brainstorm.

Through consultation on external specimens, with diagnostic and classification frameworks now used worldwide, and as a devoted teacher and mentor, Professor Scolyer leaves an indelible mark on all who had the privilege of working alongside him.

Colleague and friend Georgina Long said in a statement that Professor Scolyer was a truly extraordinary pathologist.

"The 'pathologists' pathologist' — who also made generous time for clinicians navigating complex diagnostic cases, understanding that an accurate tissue diagnosis was critical to patient care," she said.

"His knowledge was vast, his skill exceptional, with an unparalleled eye for accurate tissue diagnoses, and the precision to apply decades of experience where it mattered most."

A leading light in melanoma research

Professor Scolyer decided in his teens that he wanted to be a specialist doctor.

Once he completed medical school at the University of Tasmania, he started on a 15-year path to becoming a pathologist.

Early in his pathology career he took a job at the Melanoma Institute Australia, which meant he could split his time between undertaking research at the University of Sydney and diagnosing melanoma cases at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer mostly caused by exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays.

It is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. If not caught early, it can be aggressive and can spread around the body from only a small tumour.

When Professor Scolyer began working on melanoma, the only treatment available was surgery. If the cancer had already spread, it was almost impossible to treat and was often considered a death sentence.

More than 90 per cent of people with melanoma that had spread died within five years.

Working as a clinician, he discovered a wealth of patient data and tissue samples that could be used to investigate better treatment options.

Cancer epidemiologist Anne Cust, from the University of Sydney, said this helped to advance the understanding of what causes melanoma.

"Particularly the genetic changes that underpin development of melanoma," she said.

"Part of that was facilitated by the creation of a large biobank of samples [in 1998]."

Around the same time, in the 2000s, immunotherapy drugs took off. These drugs modify the immune system to attack cancer cells, including skin cancers.

"The early results were so stunning that it has been described as a 'penicillin moment' for melanoma treatment," Professor Scolyer wrote in Brainstorm.

He and Professor Long conducted clinical trials using different combinations of immunotherapy drugs to treat melanoma patients with as few side effects as possible.

Early results around the world were phenomenal. In stage four melanoma patients, where the cancer had spread and who had no more treatment options, a drug called Anti-CTLA-4 provided a 20 per cent survival rate over three years.

When combined with another drug, Anti-PD-1, patients had even more impressive results. A randomised phase 2 clinical trial led by Professor Long found that for those with melanoma that had spread to the brain, 42 per cent of the patients treated were still alive seven years later.

But the pair's biggest breakthrough came after trialling the impact of the drugs depending on whether they were given before or after surgery.

They undertook one of the world's first clinical trials to use immunotherapy drugs in a much earlier stage of treatment.

"Historically, melanoma was always a surgical disease. You cut it out and it would come back in high-risk cases," Professor Long told ABC Radio National's Sunday Extra.

"But using the drugs before surgery … if you've had a really good response, you're basically cured."

Aiming for zero deaths from melanoma

Todd Harper, a childhood friend of Professor Scolyer and Cancer Council Victoria's chief executive, told ABC Melbourne that Professor Scolyer was not only committed to improving treatment outcomes for melanoma.

"He understood the importance and the invaluable contribution that prevention made," he said.

"He really was someone who saw the totality of the opportunity with melanoma and cancers more broadly."

Today, the survival rate for people with stage 3 or 4 melanoma is 55 per cent after five years.

Professor Long and Professor Scolyer wanted to increase survival rates much further.

As co-directors of the Melanoma Institute, in 2017, they worked to implement a target of zero deaths from melanoma in Australia.

With Australia having the highest melanoma rates in the world, it was a bold mission, but they made significant steps towards their target.

In 2013, more than 1,600 people died of melanoma. Ten years later, that number dropped to about 1,300.

The work saw Professor Long and Professor Scolyer share the title of Australian of the Year in 2024.

Skin cancer researcher David Whiteman, from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, was a collaborator of Professor Scolyer and said he was a larger than life character and leading light in the medical research community.

"His career spanned a period when melanoma was a death sentence to now being a curable, treatable disease," he said.

"He was part of that revolution in treatment, he was a leader in that revolution and he did so with good grace."

Besides his research, as a pathologist Professor Scolyer also impacted thousands of lives in his diagnosing of melanoma cases.

Professor Cust said he was internationally renown for his pathology skills.

"He [Professor Scolyer] used to be sent specimens from all over the world," Professor Cust said.

"He would often given second opinions on complex cases and he would review over 2,000 specimens a year."

A life-changing diagnosis

One Saturday in May 2023, Professor Scolyer's life changed when he had a seizure in a hotel room in Poland.

After being hospitalised, it was quickly discovered that he had a dangerous tumour in his brain.

"Suddenly, instead of diagnosing and helping to manage a patient's life-threatening disease, I had become a patient with a life-threatening disease," he wrote in Brainstorm.

"I felt like I'd lost control of my life. I'd lost my autonomy."

The type of brain cancer — glioblastoma — has a very low survival rate. About 25 per cent of patients survive more than one year after diagnosis, and only 5 per cent survive more than five years after diagnosis.

"Bugger that," Professor Scolyer told Australian Story in 2023.

"I'm not happy to accept that. I want to do something that gives me a fighting chance against this tumour to see if we can make a difference."

So Professor Scolyer made himself a test subject, taking insights learnt using immunotherapy drugs for melanoma and applying them to brain cancer.

He and Professor Long wanted to use the technique that had worked so well for melanoma: undertake immunotherapy before surgically removing the cancer.

Such an approach for brain cancer had never been tried before in humans, and there was a risk that it might shorten his life, rather than prolong it.

Professor Whiteman said Professor Scolyer allowed himself to be patient zero.

"A guinea pig essentially for trialling the new approach of using the body’s own immune system, harnessing your white blood cells and training them to recognise and kill cancer cells," he said.

"It had never really been demonstrated or attempted for brain cancer."

At first, the approach seemed extremely successful.

Professor Scolyer was cancer-free for almost two years, but in March, 2025, a surgery revealed the brain cancer that would ultimately take his life had returned.

A study about his brain cancer treatment was published in Nature Medicine in February 2025, and despite the cancer recurrence, he hoped his treatment could still help others with glioblastoma around the world, just as his work in melanoma has already saved thousands of lives.

Follow-up clinical trials will be done by the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to work out if and how the treatment might work for others.

"One patient does not make a change, we need to test this [treatment] rigorously," Professor Whiteman said.

"And that's exactly what he [Professor Scolyer] would want, he was an absolute champion for evidence-based medicine and clinical trials.

"He would be the first to argue we need to do more research in this area, I think that's what he will be remembered for, his passion for science, research, evidence, the quest to improve our knowledge, to improve patient care and human life."

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