Professor Clare Scott leads the Ovarian and Rare Cancer Laboratory at WEHI and is also a medical oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Royal Women’s Hospital and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

She has spent over 25 years researching rare genealogical cancers, with a particular focus on boosting patient outcomes for ovarian cancer – a leading cause of cancer deaths in Australian women.

What inspired you to pursue a career in science?

During my medical studies, I continually saw the juxtaposition between hospital patients who were admitted due to chronic disease and cancer patients. The latter generally had worse outcomes because of the complexity of their disease and treatment processes.

I quickly realised how chemotherapy treatments were like shifting deckchairs on the Titanic – not all patients would benefit from the same treatment.

This became the starting point for my obsession with basic research to look at new ways develop approaches to treating cancer.

In order to improve patient outcomes, I knew that we needed to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach and adopt more personalised strategies. Targeted therapies have been my focus ever since.

What has been your proudest scientific achievement?

I am most proud of my contribution to the development of the PARP inhibitor – a transformative new therapy for ovarian cancer. These inhibitors prevent cancer cells from repairing, allowing them to die and stopping the cancer from remerging.

This treatment has had unprecedented success in achieving long-term remission for some women with ovarian cancer, known as ‘super-responders.’

A trial my team is co-leading with RMIT University is hoping to develop a vaccine that can increase the number of super-responder patients.

This research is critical because, despite good responses to initial surgery for ovarian cancer, more than 70% of women will experience recurrence. Most of these women will unfortunately go on to die from their cancer.

Because these cancers are rare, there is often a lack of information about the disease and treatment options, meaning people are being left behind.

About 1.4 million Australians who die from cancer will die of a rare cancer. Treatments for these cancers have not advanced at the same pace as treatments for more common cancers.

So another achievement I’m really proud of is helping to establish the national WEHI Stafford Fox Rare Cancer Program, which is dedicated to facilitating the study of many rare cancer types that are poorly researched.

This honour celebrates a lifetime of contribution. What does this recognition mean to you?

As a clinician scientist, it has always seemed a challenge to demonstrate excellence at the highest level – because I am always surrounded by people far smarter than me in both the clinic and lab.

Election to the Academy signifies that my pure scientific contributions are meaningful to other scientists – and that is everything to me.

This Fellowship will further add gravitas to the work that I am doing, which will be integral to communicating my science, particularly to the general public, and strengthening collaboration and funding opportunities, to expand the potential of my research.

Professor David Huang is a WEHI laboratory head who has devoted his career towards understanding how cancers arise and how to enhance ways to diagnose and treat blood cancers.

His significant discoveries into the BCL-2 family of proteins were part of a body of research that helped underpin AbbVie’s and Roche, Genentech’s development of Venetoclax – a blood cancer drug that blocks BCL-2 from keeping cancer cells alive.

What inspired you to pursue a career in science?

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to meet Max Perutz, a molecular biologist who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for unravelling one of the first structures of a protein: haemoglobin.

We spoke for over three hours and I remember feeling incredibly inspired by his fascination with how proteins work at the most fundamental level.

This inspiration stayed with me until my medical studies, where I chose to focus on a career in basic research that would allow me to have a deeper understanding of diseases that could then go onto helping patients.

I was particularly attracted to blood cancers because the link between basic science and the patient is the most direct in many ways.

Perutz’s discovery of the haemoglobin structure led to a better understanding of why some diseases of red blood cells, like sickle cell anaemia, occur. This was the inspiration source that has seen me dedicate much of my career towards understanding the fundamental mechanisms of cell death and how this can cause blood cancers to develop.

What has been your proudest scientific achievement?

In collaboration with other scientists at the institute, my lab has unravelled the mechanisms by which members of the Bcl-2 family determine whether a cell lives or dies.

It turned out that understanding these mechanics was critical to enhancing treatment options for people with blood cancers. That’s because often in these cancers, cells that should die stubbornly resist death, and live on to cause leukaemias and lymphomas.

By far my proudest moment has been seeing this research translated into venetoclax – a leukaemia treatment developed by Roche, Genentech and AbbVie. Venetoclax works by blocking BCL-2, helping to kill and reduce the number of cancer cells.

By 2011, when the second patient in the world who had received this drug began to show a remarkable response to the therapy, I had pivoted from basic research to translational research. Knowing my work has led to a promising new drug for blood cancer patients was a super special and life-changing moment.

This award celebrates a lifetime of contribution. What does this recognition mean to you?

The recognition by my peers and the community of what I have achieved is really remarkable. There are not many people who get to be elected as Fellows, so I’m going to really enjoy this privilege.

I already count myself lucky because I get to come to work every day surrounded by wonderful colleagues who are amazing in what they can do and are so driven. This accolade is just the cherry on top.

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Header image: Professor David Huang and Professor Clare Scott have made pioneering contributions towards their respective fields of gynaecological cancer and blood cancer research.