RADIATION THERAPY TECHNIQUES AND COMBINATION TREATMENTS FOR SARCOMA
Professor Angela Hong, Director and
co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Committee,
Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA)
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed Sydney, Australia | January 2025
Professor Angela Hong MBBS, MMed, PhD, FRANZCR is a Professor at Sydney Medical School of the University of Sydney. She is a radiation oncologist and has been a member of the Multidisciplinary Bone and Soft Tissue Tumour Clinic at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital/Chris O’Brien Lifehouse for the past 15 years.
She is also the Director and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA), a non-profit organisation aimed at enhancing treatment outcomes for sarcoma patients across Australia and New Zealand.
As a radiation oncologist located in Sydney, Australia, Professor Hong is focused on treating patients with bone and soft tissue sarcoma. And as a clinician scientist, her research focuses on developing innovative radiation therapy technique and combination treatments to improve the outcome for patients with sarcoma.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Sydney, Angela undertook an 18-month fellowship in the United States to gain additional experience before returning to Sydney to start her formal training in radiation oncology. She later completed her PhD, concentrating on radiosensitivity in skin cancer sarcoma.
Professor Hong believes in a multidisciplinary approach to managing sarcoma, given its rarity and the complexities involved in diagnosis and treatment. She is actively involved in clinical research and recently contributed to an international trial led by Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration (SARC) in the United States and the Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA) in Australia. The trial examined the advantages of including immunotherapy in the treatment regimen for high-risk soft tissue sarcoma, resulting in a notable improvement in two-year disease-free survival rates.
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Muscle Cell Communication and Repair
Dr. William Roman is a Group Leader at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University. He obtained his PhD from Paris Descartes University and Freie University of Berlin, focusing on nuclear positioning during skeletal muscle development. Dr. Roman’s research journey has taken him across the globe, including postdoctoral work in Barcelona, tissue engineering in Lisbon, and a brief stint at Stanford University.
At ARMI, Dr. Roman leads innovative research on intercellular communication within muscle organs. His work involves growing human muscles on chips to understand how skeletal muscle cells interact with neurons and tendons. This research aims to develop better models for studying muscle diseases, drug screening, and even applications in cellular agriculture and biorobotics.
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Genomics and rationally targeted therapies in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia
Prof Deborah White’s research focus is genomics and rationally targeted therapies in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) and Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) and she holds peer reviewed grants from: The William Lawrence and Blanche Hughes Foundation and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (USA), the NHMRC, the Leukaemia Foundation Australia (LFA), Channel 7, Cancer Australia, Tour de Cure and the Cancer Council SA (CCSA). Professor White has presented more than 170 papers at scientific meetings, and authored more than 100 scientific publications as well as being an inventor on several international patents.
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Enhancing occupational therapy service provision with military veterans
Prof McKinstry was instrumental in the development of the occupational therapy course at the La Trobe University’s Bendigo campus and also the establishment of the Rural Health School.
Prof McKinstry’s research focus is on health workforce, particularly developing a sustainable rural health workforce through recruitment of rural students for health courses, innovative and flexible delivery of health courses, telehealth and emerging areas of practice for occupational therapists.
