Professor Jayesh Desai is a Medical Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and Associate Director Clinical Research.

Professor Desai has extensive experience in translational research applied to early drug development. He is Head of the Phase I/Early Drug Development program, internationally recognised as being in the top tier of Global Phase I cancer trial programs; and is Deputy-Director of the PCCTU. Peter Mac’s Global Industry Research Alliances program, our formal mechanism established to engage with industry paternerships, is led by Prof Desai. He has been Principal Investigator on over 70 clinical trials over the last 10 years including 50 Phase I and first in man trials. These have been both investigator initiated and collaborative trials with Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies. The research has been across a broad array of agents from small molecules targeting key pathways including RAS and RAF, and novel immuno-oncology agents and combinations. He has over 200 publications, >35,000 citations and published in high impact journals including the NEJM, Nature, The Lancet, Nat Med, JCO. He has obtained over $50M in competitive research funding as a CI to develop programs in translational and clinical research.

Professor Desai has served in a number of key national/international committees including American Society of Clinical Oncology and European Society of Medical Oncology in Sarcoma and Drug Development. He has been successful in obtaining over $50 million in peer-reviewed and direct industry research funding. He has served on a number of leading international committees including ASCO, AACR and ESMO, focusing in particular on Developmental Therapeutics and serves on a number of journal editorial boards including the JCO (multiple terms) and has recently been appointed as a Senior Editor for Clinical Cancer Research.

Professor Desai completed his Medical Oncology training in Melbourne in 2002. He completed a translational research fellowship in sarcoma at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.