Symposium February 10
Location
About
Oncology Symposium: From Sequence to Trial: Victoria’s Oncology Advantage
Victoria has the largest concentration of cancer researchers in Australia, a comprehensive genomics capability, and a clinical trial sector that continues to attract significant international investment. What is less clear is how well those assets connect to one another, and whether a patient in Victoria is reliably better placed than a patient elsewhere to receive a genomic profile and a matched trial place.
This symposium brings the sector together for three-quarters of a day to answer that question with evidence rather than assertion. It follows the pathway a patient actually takes: from screening and molecular profiling, through comprehensive genomic profiling and molecular oncology board review, to triage into a suitable clinical trial. At each step it asks what Victoria does well, where the pathway breaks, and what decisions would fix it.
The program is deliberately mixed. Research leaders set out the science, industry and infrastructure providers explain what can be delivered at scale, and case studies show what coordinated activity looks like in practice. The brain cancer collaboration is treated as the anchor case study — not as a disease-specific session, but as a working model of how a research consortium, hospital network, philanthropy and government can align around a single tumour stream, and what it would take to repeat that elsewhere.
The Victorian Government is the symposium’s principal stakeholder. The program is structured so that the closing session produces a short set of practical priorities that can inform government decision-making, sector planning and BioMelbourne Network’s own program of work.
Victoria has the largest concentration of cancer researchers in Australia, a comprehensive genomics capability, and a clinical trial sector that continues to attract significant international investment. What is less clear is how well those assets connect to one another, and whether a patient in Victoria is reliably better placed than a patient elsewhere to receive a genomic profile and a matched trial place.
This symposium brings the sector together for three-quarters of a day to answer that question with evidence rather than assertion. It follows the pathway a patient actually takes: from screening and molecular profiling, through comprehensive genomic profiling and molecular oncology board review, to triage into a suitable clinical trial. At each step it asks what Victoria does well, where the pathway breaks, and what decisions would fix it.
The program is deliberately mixed. Research leaders set out the science, industry and infrastructure providers explain what can be delivered at scale, and case studies show what coordinated activity looks like in practice. The brain cancer collaboration is treated as the anchor case study — not as a disease-specific session, but as a working model of how a research consortium, hospital network, philanthropy and government can align around a single tumour stream, and what it would take to repeat that elsewhere.
The Victorian Government is the symposium’s principal stakeholder. The program is structured so that the closing session produces a short set of practical priorities that can inform government decision-making, sector planning and BioMelbourne Network’s own program of work.