Professor Roger Reddel AO is a medical oncologist, molecular geneticist who is best known internationally for his discoveries regarding cancer cell immortalisation. He is the Executive Director of Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), Westmead, the Sir Lorimer Dods Professor of the University of Sydney. His research career on the cellular and molecular biology of immortalisation commenced as a postdoctoral scientist (Fulbright Fellow) at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland, USA, where he improved techniques for immortalisation of human cells in vitro and made the key finding that immortalisation is necessary for malignant transformation of human cells.

He returned to Australia to establish and head the Cancer Research Unit at CMRI, with a fellowship from Cancer Council NSW, which provided major support for three decades. He is internationally recognised for research on the enzyme telomerase and for discovering ALT (Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres), which together contribute to unlimited growth in >95% of cancers. His team has made additional seminal findings regarding ALT and the manner in which it is repressed in normal (non-cancer) cells, and identified a molecular marker for ALT. His research aims to help develop anti-cancer treatments based on an understanding of cancer cell vulnerabilities associated with activation of ALT or telomerase.

He is also a co-founder of ProCan®, an internationally collaborative program that is developing proteomic techniques and a knowledge base with the aim of enabling routine use of proteomic data in adult and pediatric clinical oncology.

Professor Reddel has won numerous awards including the Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research (2007), the 2011 NSW Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Researcher of the Year, and the Neil Hamilton Fairley Medal of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (2017). He has been elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Society NSW, and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2021.

- Direct collaboration in prospective clinical trials aiming to improve cancer precision medicine
- Direct collaboration in developing prognostic and predictive biomarkers that can be integrated into clinical practice.
- Direct involvement in WIN academic, research and clinical activities.