Australians of the Year Richard Scolyer and Georgina Long have one message in their quest to stop melanoma deaths – take sun safety seriously. Editor in Chief Michelle Giglio caught up with them on a rare break from the lab.
You don’t normally hear high achievers say they want to put themselves out of a job. But that is exactly what Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer want to achieve – stopping melanoma for good.
It was for their involvement in groundbreaking worldwide research about melanoma, which now sees a 55 per cent survival rate for those with advanced stages of the disease – as opposed to just five per cent 15 years ago – that Richard and Georgina were awarded the ultimate honour of Australians of the Year (AOTY) on 25 January this year.
The co-medical directors of Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA) in Wollstonecraft are well regarded in their field. Richard is considered the world’s leading melanoma pathologist, and one of the most published, with some 1,000 articles under his name. At MIA, Georgina heads up the largest melanoma clinical trials unit in the world, developing new cancer-treating drugs. She is ranked as the number one melanoma researcher in the world, sharing this position with a colleague from Italy.
This year, the duo has embarked on an AOTY ‘Tour of Honour’ around Australia, taking their message of sun safety from the bottom of Tasmania, to north-east Arnhem Land at the top of the Northern Territory. “The recognition of the work that we’ve been doing is important,” Richard, 57, says. “But from a personal perspective, the opportunity to visit parts of Australia and (meet) Australians I would never get to (normally), that’s blown me away with joy.”
Adds Georgina: “It’s been clear along the way, the welcoming spirit, wherever we’ve gone. And it brings Australians together, the cancer journey, the cancer story, melanoma – trying to do something together.”
For these medical professionals have the ultimate aim of zero deaths from melanoma, something they have both been working on for almost all of their careers. It’s not a pleasant topic, dealing with potential death every day. But it is one which touches so many people in our sun-kissed nation, where we focus our lives outdoors – often with disastrous consequences, especially those who grew up decades ago when the all-important message of ‘Slip, Slop, Slap,’ and even sunscreen, were non-existent.
“Melanoma is Australia’s cancer,” Georgina says starkly. We have the highest rate of melanoma in the world, and it kills one of us on average every six hours. While world-wide research has reduced deaths from the disease, concerningly it is now the most diagnosed cancer for Australians aged between 20 and 39. “We’re seeing that effect of the novel drug therapies impacting, but that’s not where you make your greatest impact,” Georgina states. “We’ve got to decrease the number of people who get it in the first place. I really do want to put this whole institute out of a job.”
“And move on to the next cancer,” adds Richard. That ‘c’ word has become very personal to Richard, who is living with the rare and incurable brain cancer glioblastoma. The experimental procedure devised by Georgina for Richard activates the body’s own immune cells to combat cancer. While Richard has had no recurrence of glioblastoma in the 14 months since he began the novel treatment last year – where typically the cancer would return after six months – Georgina is at pains to point out that it is not a tested procedure.
“It’s only one case and it’s an anecdote and it may not work in anyone else,” Georgina emphasises. “We now need to investigate this approach in a clinical trial.” This is in the works.
The two are not just colleagues, but close friends, who each have three children around the same ages, and share a love of competing in triathlons. But most significantly, they have an incredible passion about sun safety and stopping the glamorisation of tanning to prevent melanoma.
Being Australians of the Year has allowed them a significant platform to advocate for more action – greater protection for those playing, refereeing and watching sport, shade structures across outdoor pools, and developing a targeted melanoma screening program.
Both of them remember being in the sun as children – Richard in Tasmania, where he grew up lathering himself in tanning oil (perhaps wishful thinking in the cool climes of the Apple Isle), and Georgina on cycling trips with her five siblings, picking off burnt skin from her red nose on many a summer.
But tanning is actually ‘brewing melanomas,’ Georgina says. Back in March, the duo did a spate of interviews about the rise in posts by influencers spruiking tanning products on Instagram and TikTok – an issue they had already raised at the National Press Club in 2022, when the hashtag #sunburntanlines received millions of views on TikTok. The platform reached out to MIA and created a ‘tanning that’s cooked’ campaign, which would come up with sun safe information if someone searched for tanning tips.
Making ‘Sun Smart’ trendy – as opposed to tanning – is a key objective for these scientists. “We know in primary school, there’s a ‘No hat, no play’ policy. People follow it,” Richard says. “But when they become teenagers and young adults, it seems like it’s ‘trendy’ to have a tan, or there’s this glamorisation of tanning.
“We’ve got to get that message changed so people will follow what’s good for their health over the long term by avoiding ultraviolet irradiation damage.
“And one of the challenges is it doesn’t happen tomorrow. You get sunburnt straight away, but skin cancer tends to take a decade or more to develop after that. So we can’t just do short- term messaging. It has to be ongoing.”
Georgina and Richard with their AOTY 2024 awards
Georgina adds: “Anything you do, even at the age of 60 (to) become sun safe will prevent skin cancers and melanoma. So being sun safe at any age will make a difference to your risk of skin cancer for the rest of your life.”
Alarmingly, Georgina says that $2.8 billion a year is spent on skin cancer treatment in Australia. “So if we prevent it in the first place, we can then spend more money on schools.”
Prevention of course means wearing sunscreen outdoors, staying out of the sun in the middle of the day, wearing clothing and sunglasses which provide protection – and seeking shade. And it means changing the ethos that tanning is cool – especially for younger people, who are so heavily influenced by social media, Georgina argues.
“Social media is an extraordinarily powerful peer group pressure tool for the glamorisation of tanning. It’s being used for bad, and people don’t realise it. They’re not educated. But once people are educated, they can make changes. Peer group pressure on adolescents, it’s heavy duty.
“(But the glamorisation of tanning) is simply ‘fashion’. It’s so fickle. We can try and use those (social media) tools for good.
“Something we’re trying to work on, with our platform this year, is to at least get the message out there and then start to do some real change. There’s two of us and our messaging goes only so far, but it has to be a real change at all levels and the desire to make a difference for this country in terms of skin cancer.”
The dynamic duo first met in the late 1990s, when Georgina was a medical student, and Richard was a pathology registrar in training. Their paths crossed again in 2008 as they were both drawn to melanoma research.
Richard was based at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital which housed the then-named Sydney Melanoma Unit. “I wanted to make a difference to Australia’s national cancer,” he says. “And this was a way to do it. I was drawn by that and inspired by our predecessors who’d done some incredible work.” As a pathologist, he found he could be a ‘bridge’ between the clinical doctor and the researcher by looking at the tissue down the microscope and learning more about it. “So it gives you an opportunity to do research in a way that that can’t be done by many other clinically-based doctors.”
The pair were appointed co-medical directors of MIA in 2017, working in the Poche Centre built at Wollstonecraft opposite the Mater Hospital in 2010. The centre was named after Manly-based benefactors Kay Van Norton Poche and Greg Poche, whose $40 million donation was the single- biggest by an individual in Australian history for a charitable cause. Sadly, Kay passed away in June this year after a long illness. “(The donation) was truly incredible because they hadn’t had melanoma,” Richard recalls. “They were driven by hearing about the work we were doing and what we needed to get to be able to really take things to the next level.”
Richard, the late Kay Van Norton Poche, MIA chairman Grant King and Georgina at March for Melanoma in Manly
Such donations have enabled the not-for-profit institute to build an ‘amazing multidisciplinary team’ and become a world-leader in melanoma research, Richard says. “Georgina and my respective areas of expertise are complementary. But we couldn’t do it on our own. It’s because we’ve got people who are great surgeons, dermatologists, radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, researchers, and support staff. This incredible team is why we’ve been able to make such a big difference.”
That team – and a wider network of colleagues – kicked in when Richard was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Georgina recalls when she first found out: “It’s a shock because it came out of the blue. As doctors, you can already see the end game. And you just think, ‘All right, that’s it. He’s gone. He’s going to be going through treatment’. It’s a type of tumour that’s deadly. There are only a few people that have survived it.”
Instead of giving in to her grief, Georgina reacted the only way she knew how – solving the problem. “I guess that’s what I do every day with my patients. And so I immediately was thinking, ‘What else? What can we do differently here? What’s a way to solve this? There must be (a solution), given my deep knowledge of drug therapies and my experience in developing drugs in humans that make an impact across the world’ – which have now impacted other cancers by the way!”
After Georgina devised the plan, she worked with colleagues ‘around the clock’ to ensure the tumour was analysed properly to understand the impact of the drugs. Georgina developed a way to apply similar ideas and techniques used for treating melanoma to the glioblastoma. So Richard received a unique combination immunotherapy before the surgery to remove the cancer.
For Richard, the decision to go ahead with Georgina’s plan was a ‘no-brainer.’ “I knew that if we were going to try something in a cancer which is essentially incurable, and treatment hadn’t changed in almost 20 years – we’ve got to try and do something to change the field. And so with Georgina’s expertise, and my knowledge of the field, it was a no-brainer to go down this path to see if we could generate some science, which would spark interest to ultimately lead to a clinical trial.”
Richie Fejo performed the Saltwater Ceremony for RIchard and Georgina when they visited the NT in June
Richard is writing a book which he hopes will be out in November about his cancer journey. He has been very open about his feelings – sometimes of depression and despair at facing death – in countless interviews and on his Facebook page. He has found the process of writing more positive than he thought it would be. “The journey that I’ve been going on for the last 14 and a half months has been very challenging for me and everyone who’s in my inner circle,” he reflects. “My life’s been turned upside down with unknowns about my health. My work’s changed completely. And it’s put a lot of pressure on my family, colleagues and friends, and that’s made life difficult at all levels.”
He credits his wife, Katie, for her incredible support. Given he is now prone to seizures as a result of his cancer, he can no longer drive and must rely on Katie to take him to appointments. “I can’t thank her enough for being by my side.”
Exercise has always been a big part of Richard’s life, but now has become especially important since his diagnosis. “I find the exercise really good for my mental health,” Richard says. “And particularly now I’ve got cancer, you have time to think about a whole heap of things, and you just feel euphoric afterwards. It definitely helps me coping with the many, many challenges that I’ve faced now.” So most Sundays if he feels well enough, he will cycle on the Northern Beaches with the crew from cancer charity fundraiser Tour de Cure.
The Northern Beaches holds a special place for MIA, as Manly was the site of the first Melanoma March in 2013, the annual event to raise awareness of the cancer, fundraise for research and remember those lost from the disease. It now takes place at the Bay Run in Drummoyne.
Above all, Richard and Georgina both say family is ‘number one’. Richard speaks proudly of his children Emily (20), Matt (18) and Lucy (16). Georgina, mother of Livia (21), Lucia (18) and Ella (16), says her children, husband Greg and extended family are ‘really important things’ she’d like to get back to after an ‘unbelievably busy’ 15 months. Somehow she manages to balance it all in her endless drive for zero deaths from melanoma. “It was ingrained into me as a child to do things that make a difference to many,” she reflects. “So if we solve this problem, I’m going to move on to another one.”
