Professor Desai chairs American Association for Cancer Research Meeting
05 May 2025
For the first time, an Australian is honoured with the role of co-Chair for the entire clinical trials program at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) which was held in Chicago from April 25 to 30.
Peter Mac’s Professor Jayesh Desai is the first person outside of North America to hold this important role with his appointment speaking to his international reputation as a leader in clinical trials.
Professor Desai said he was tasked with determining which clinical trial abstracts should be accepted and presented in the scientific program.
“The quality of submissions and presentations was simply outstanding, and it was great to see such a strong presence from Peter Mac researchers at this year’s meeting,” he said.
“We saw a large number of practice changing trials, early phase trials with novel compounds as well as advances in targeting complex biology to allow for more precision oncology treatments in the future at the meeting.
“AACR has always had the reputation as the pre-eminent international preclinical and translational scientific meeting, but in recent years, has strategically focused on extending this to clinical translation and clinical trials.
“I was excited by the results of trials in head and neck cancer and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that will change the way we treat these two cancers to provide better outcomes for patients.
“The other really exciting area was the work being done to understand the benefits of neoadjuvant, adjuvant and non-operative approaches to improve cure rates; with both immunotherapy and molecularly-targeted approaches.”
Presenting at the closing Plenary Session ‘Visions for the Future’, Professor Desai noted that there were a number of very interesting novel compounds and first in class agents that are showing promising results.
Professor Jeanne Tie, Medical Oncologist at Peter Mac was invited to speak about her research into the clinical utility of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) to determine minimal residual disease detection in colorectal cancer.
“Our data shows the value of using ctDNA to monitor disease burden at a microscopic level and help treatment decision making in the clinic,” said Professor Tie.
Peter Mac clinician researchers Professors Arun Azad and Sherene Loi as well as Associate Professors Michael Dickinson and Ben Tran were also involved in global studies that were chosen to be presented at the Annual Meeting.