{"id":3163,"date":"2026-06-27T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T19:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3163"},"modified":"2026-06-27T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T19:11:00","slug":"richard-scolyer-cancer-expert-who-became-his-own-subject-dies-at-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3163","title":{"rendered":"Richard Scolyer, cancer expert who \u2018became his own subject,\u2019 dies at 59"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dr. Richard Scolyer, a world-renowned Australian pathologist whose research into melanoma broadened the medical community\u2019s understanding and diagnosis of what is called the country\u2019s national cancer because of its prevalence, died on June 7 in Sydney. He was 59.<\/p>\n

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His death was announced by Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, who said that Scolyer would receive a state funeral.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Scolyer was diagnosed with advanced glioblastoma and lived well past the median survival time of about a year for the aggressive brain cancer. In the three years since, he described the course of his experimental immunotherapy treatment on social media and in nationally televised interviews and also wrote \u201cBrainstorm,\u201d his 2024 autobiography, with journalist Garry Maddox.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cancer specialist who became his own subject, Professor Scolyer walked his uncertain path, as he called it, with courage, determination and grace and his legacy will always be with us,\u201d Albanese said after Scolyer\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Like many Australians, Albanese had been aware of Scolyer\u2019s melanoma research and the coverage of his brain cancer and treatment. In 2025, Albanese announced the Australian government\u2019s contribution of $5.9 million to establish the Richard Scolyer Chair in Brain Research at Chris O\u2019Brien Lifehouse, a cancer-treatment center in Camperdown, a suburb of Sydney.<\/p>\n

For more than 20 years, Scolyer specialized in studying melanoma \u2014 the deadliest form of skin cancer \u2014 at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and at the nonprofit Melanoma Institute Australia, in Wollstonecraft, a suburb of Sydney\u2019s Lower North Shore. Melanoma is the third-most-diagnosed cancer in Australia, largely because of sun exposure to its mostly fair-skinned people.<\/p>\n

At the melanoma institute \u2014 where Scolyer was one of its medical directors for seven years, until 2025 \u2014 he helped develop and run its Biospecimen Bank, a collection of samples from the body\u2019s organs and fluids that are used for research. He was a leader of the institute\u2019s Australian Melanoma Genome Project, which is mapping the melanoma genome to discover the genetic mutations that cause it. And he also consulted on melanoma diagnoses with clinicians inside and outside Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis 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,\u201d Dr. Georgina Long, the institute\u2019s medical director, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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Scolyer was known for research that illuminated why melanoma spreads to the brain and that identified the molecular, immune and pathological features that can predict patient outcomes even more effectively, according to the Melanoma Research Alliance in Washington, which funded some of his research.<\/p>\n

\u201cPathology is viewed as a diagnostic specialty,\u201d Stephanie Kauffman, the president of the alliance, said in an interview. \u201cBut he demonstrated that pathology could be predictive and that melanoma tissue could help us understand treatment response, what type of treatments we should be using, and the recurrence risk. That is probably one of his greatest legacies.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, Scolyer and Long, his colleague at the melanoma institute, were named joint Australian of the Year for trailblazing work that has helped raise the five-year survival rate for advanced melanoma from below 5% to more than 50%.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, everyone knows someone with melanoma,\u201d Scolyer said when he accepted the award. \u201cIt\u2019s as Aussie as our golden beaches and our sweeping plains. We\u2019re the melanoma gold medalists. But this is not a gold medal to be proud of. In most cases, melanoma is preventable with sun-safe behavior, and prevention is always better than a cure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Richard Anthony Scolyer was born on Dec. 16, 1966, in Launceston, a city in the Australian state of Tasmania. His father, Maurice, was an auto electrician, and his mother, Jenny, was a schoolteacher.<\/p>\n

Richard was 3 when his mother had the first in a series of strokes and 12 when his father had a skin graft to treat what was thought to be a melanoma on his chest. (It turned out to be a benign mole, Richard discovered years later when he asked for a copy of his father\u2019s slides and pathology report. The correct diagnosis had been reached only after the ultimately unnecessary surgery.)<\/p>\n

After earning a bachelor\u2019s degree in medical science from the University of Tasmania in 1987, he stayed on and received two more bachelor\u2019s degrees, in medicine and surgery, three years later.<\/p>\n

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In the 1990s, Scolyer explored various medical disciplines at hospitals in Australia and Britain before becoming a pathology trainee and then a senior staff specialist in anatomical pathology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. He began his association with the melanoma institute in 2001 and earned his medical degree in 2006 from the University of Sydney, where he also taught.<\/p>\n

Scolyer was a sought-after collaborator in melanoma studies and published more than 800 peer-review journal articles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe certainly was present in some of the most important global clinical trials on immunotherapy for melanoma,\u201d Dr. Jedd Wolchok, an oncologist who specializes in melanoma and who directs the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan, said in an interview. \u201cNow we\u2019re treating people at earlier stages of disease with immunotherapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his parents, Scolyer is survived by his wife, Dr. Katie Nicoll; three children, Emily, Lucy and Matthew; and a brother, Mark.<\/p>\n

Scolyer was at a medical conference in Krakow, Poland, in 2023 when he had a seizure, which led to being diagnosed with a brain tumor. He correctly surmised that it was a glioblastoma, the worst possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was incurable, and I was distraught and angry to be facing certain death,\u201d he wrote in \u201cBrainstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Sydney, Long devised a plan, which had been informed by her success in treating patients with advanced melanoma that had metastasized into their brains. Like those patients, Scolyer received a regimen of immunotherapy drugs first \u2014 to activate the body\u2019s immune system to fight his brain cancer \u2014 followed by surgery, radiation and a personalized cancer vaccine to further boost his immune system.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving helped develop a protocol to assess the pathological response to immunotherapy before surgery,\u201d Scolyer wrote, \u201cI\u2019d seen the follow-up data on these melanoma patients. Knowing how well they had responded filled me with hope.\u201d He also knew that the drugs could be toxic or shorten his life.<\/p>\n

After the treatment, he had a strong immunological response and clear brain scans, although there is no certainty that the pre-surgical immunotherapy was the reason. In 2025, the cancer returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking,\u201d he told an Australian TV reporter, who interviewed him periodically. \u201cI\u2019m not ready to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the three drugs that Scolyer received before surgery are being used in an ongoing clinical trial in the United States and Australia to determine if they can improve the treatment for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a long time to get trials over the line, but to be actually recruiting patients in the United States \u2014 and hopefully here soon \u2014 means we can test out the drugs to see if they actually make a difference,\u201d Scolyer told The Brisbane Times this year.<\/p>\n

Dr. Mustafa Khasraw, the deputy director of the Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Duke Cancer Institute, is the principal investigator of the trial in the United States. \u201cProgress will require us to think beyond convention and pursue new ideas and innovative treatments,\u201d he wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is difficult to find meaning in such a devastating diagnosis,\u201d he added, \u201cRichard\u2019s experience helped raise awareness of the challenges faced by patients with glioblastoma and the importance of continuing to push the science forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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