Congratulations to Dr Robert Rawson, winner of the 2024 Rising Star PhD Candidate Award which was announced at the recent NSW Premier’s Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research.

Dr Raw­son works for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy in Syd­ney as a Tis­sue Pathol­o­gy Staff Spe­cial­ist at Melanoma Insti­tute Aus­tralia and Roy­al Prince Alfred Hospital.

Regard­ed as a glob­al expert in this area of melanoma, his work is shap­ing the future of melanoma treat­ment and help­ing clin­i­cians deliv­er patients the most appro­pri­ate care for their cancer.

Dr Raw­son is com­plet­ing his PhD as a part-time stu­dent whilst hold­ing a full-time posi­tion as a Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist pathologist.

“The focus of my research project con­duct­ed as part of my post­grad­u­ate stud­ies is to accu­rate­ly deter­mine the patho­log­i­cal response to neoad­ju­vant immunother­a­py for pri­ma­ry and metasta­t­ic melanoma,” Dr Raw­son said.

“This work allows clin­i­cians to either deesca­late or change ther­a­py depend­ing on the type and degree of response to the treat­ment admin­is­tered and pro­vides a more per­son­alised can­cer treat­ment plan for patients, with the aim to deliv­er the most appro­pri­ate care for bet­ter health outcomes”.

Dr Raw­son has co-authored numer­ous peer-reviewed pub­li­ca­tions and fre­quent­ly presents at local and inter­na­tion­al meet­ings. He has an impres­sive track record of research for his stage of career, with more than 50 pub­li­ca­tions of orig­i­nal research to date.

Dr Laveniya Sat­gu­nasee­lan, Staff Spe­cial­ist Neu­ropathol­o­gist at Roy­al Prince Alfred Hos­pi­tal was also a final­ist in the PhD Ris­ing Star cat­e­go­ry and is super­vised by Pro­fes­sor Ruta Gup­ta, Direc­tor of NSW Health Pathology’s Tis­sue Pathol­o­gy and Diag­nos­tic Oncol­o­gy Depart­ment at RPA Hospital.

Dr Satgunaseelan’s the­sis focus­es on genom­ic dri­vers of oral squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma in young patients.

The Ris­ing Star PhD Can­di­date Award hon­ours an excep­tion­al PhD Can­di­date who is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant progress in their research and show­ing the poten­tial to make an impact in any field of can­cer research.

You can see the full list of award win­ners here. Also attend­ing the pres­ti­gious event was NSW Health Pathology’s Prof Richard Scoly­er, who was invit­ed to present the awards as a Co-Aus­tralian of the Year, along with Prof Georgina Long.

Con­grat­u­la­tions Dr Raw­son and Dr Sat­gu­nasee­lan on this incred­i­ble achievement.

We’re proud to see you both recog­nised for your inno­v­a­tive can­cer research.

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