Investigators

AMaRC Investigators

Associate Professor Peter Mollee

Professor Andrew Spencer

Professor Hang Quach

Associate Professor John Reynolds

Doctor Tiffany Khong

Doctor Sridurga Mithraprabhu

Professor Simon Harrison

Doctor Shafqat Inam

Hayley Beer

Associate Professor Peter Mollee

Dr Mollee practices as a consultant haematologist in clinical and laboratory haematology at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and is Associate Professor with the University of Queensland Medical School. He holds appointments with the Medical Scientific Advisory Group of Myeloma Australia and is Chairman of the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG) where he leads the Myeloma Subgroup Committee and co-chairs the High Grade Lymphoma Subgroup.

Dr Mollee obtained a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology with a specialisation in Research Protocol Design and has a particular interest in amyloidosis and the plasma cell dyscrasias. He heads the Myeloma Service as well as the Princess Alexandra Hospital Amyloidosis Centre which runs one of the few clinics in Australia dedicated exclusively to the care of patients with amyloidosis.

Professor Andrew Spencer

Professor Andrew Spencer is a leading clinical researcher in Multiple Myeloma (MM) with a keen interest in identifying more effective and novel treatment regimes for patients living with MM. He is interested in identifying mechanisms of MM disease progression and the different methods that can be used to detect minimal residual disease in MM and how this can be used to optimise clinical care.

Andrew is Head of the Malignant Haematology and Stem Cell Transplantation Service at The Alfred Hospital and is a Professor of Haematology with Monash.

Professor Hang Quach

Professor Hang Quach, of the University of Melbourne is the lead haematologist for Myeloma and Director of Haematology Clinical Trials at St.Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. She also serves as a councilor of the Specialist Medical Review Council on multiple myeloma, to the Australian Minister of Veterans' Affairs.

As part of her role on the Myeloma Scientific Advisory Group (MSAG) for Myeloma Australia, Prof. Quach leads the development and biennial update of the Australian National Treatment Guideline for Multiple Myeloma, to ensure standardisation of optimal care for patients with Multiple Myeloma across Australia.

Her clinical and translational research focuses on novel therapeutics for myeloma and mechanisms of development of treatment resistance, from which she has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts and attracted significant research funding through competitive research grants and industry collaborations.

Associate Professor John Reynolds

John Reynolds is an experienced clinical trials biostatistician with collaborative research interests in the application of novel trial designs, including Bayesian adaptive designs, to blood cancer research, mainly in Multiple Myeloma and Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, and the identification and validation of markers of response and survival using methods for "statistical learning".

John is the Senior Expert Biostatistician in the Department of Clinical Haematology at The Alfred Hospital and is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD) at Monash University. He has previoiusly held biostatistical positions at Monash and Deakin universities, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and in a global pharmaceutical company.

Doctor Tiffany Khong

Dr. Khong is a Senior Research Fellow with 20+ years’ experience in MM research. She coordinates the research activities of Professor Andrew Spencer’s Myeloma Research Group (MRG) at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD). Her investigations on identification and characterization of novel therapeutic agents for multiple myeloma (MM) has been instrumental in the initiation of a number of MM clinical trials at the Alfred Hospital.

She has also generated a unique collection of human MM cell lines from patients (35+) that is available for pre-clinical drug evaluation projects. More recently, she developed and validated the SKY92 MMProfiler, that allows for risk stratification of MM patients that is now routinely utilised for newly diagnosed patients at the Alfred Hospital. She is the Principal Scientist that leads and oversees the biobanking of samples collected for the centralized Myeloma and Related Diseases Registry (MRDR) M1000 biobank and 15+ international and national multiple myeloma clinical trials.

Doctor Sridurga Mithraprabhu

Dr. Mithraprabhu is a Senior Research Fellow in the Myeloma Research Group (MRG) at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD). She has worked in multiple myeloma (MM) research for 10+ years and has extensively investigated histone deacetylase inhibitor, panobinostat, that provided the insight for initiation of a clinical trial for MM maintenance therapy at the Alfred Hospital.

From 2014, she has developed and led the liquid biopsy research program for multiple myeloma that focuses on the detection and analysis of biomarkers in the blood stream of MM patients. This work provided the framework for the establishment of a national biobank, the M1000, and she is the Principal scientist on the M1000 biobanking committee. She is also a co-investigator on MM clinical trials at the Alfred Hospital. Her liquid biopsy program has resulted in several peer-reviewed publications, attracted significant research funding and industry collaborations. Her current focus is to develop a screening blood test as an alternative methodology to bone marrow biopsy that can potentially transform MM clinical management.

Professor Simon Harrison

Prof. Simon Harrison is the Director, Centre of Excellence for Cellular Immunotherpy at VCCC and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Director of Clinical Spheresis, and a clinician scientist in the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology in Melbourne University. He is a leading Australia Myeloma clinician and chair of the Myeloma Scientific Advisory Group at Myeloma Australia.

Clinical Research: Prof Harrison's clinical research is focused in the field of multiple myeloma examining novel therapies including novel drug combinations, early phase clinical trial design, the incorporation of novel biomarkers into clinical protocols and cellular immunotherapy therapy.

Laboratory research: Prof Harrison's work focuses on the immunopathology of multiple myeloma, the impact of novel drug combinations in cellular immune therapies and in vivo cell tracking. He is also a lead in the development of POL1 inhibitors in combination with other novel drugs to target ribosome biogenesis.

Doctor Shafqat Inam

Dr Shafqat Inam is a consultant haematologist at the Alfred Hospital. His clinical and research focus is the application of novel immunotherapies such as bispecific antibodies and CAR T cell therapy, in the treatment of haematological malignancies including multiple myeloma.

Hayley Beer

Hayley is a Clinical Nurse Consultant in the Myeloma and Autograft team at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Lead for Stakeholder Engagement and Advocacy at Myeloma Australia.

She has worked in haematology across inpatient, outpatient and clinical trials units at Royal Melbourne and University College London Hospital and is the immediate past Chair of the Haematology Society of Australia and New Zealand’s Victorian Nurses’ Group. She has a passion for nurse-led research and is currently undertaking a Masters of Philosophy in Graduate Research.