NSW Oncology Group: Neuro-Oncology

Chair: Kerrie McDonald, PhD

Head, Neuro-oncology, Adult Cancer Program, Lowy Cancer Research Centre

Dr McDonald completed her PhD in 2001 at the University of Melbourne and took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford in 2002. Dr McDonald joined the Cancer Genetics Laboratory at the Kolling Institute of Medical Research in 2004 and has since driven the brain tumour research. In 2010 she was appointed Head of the Neuro-oncology Adult Cancer program at the Lowy Cancer Research Centre. Projects supervised or conducted by Dr McDonald specifically target the identification of biological markers with utility to improve diagnosis, prognosis and response to treatment. Dr McDonald was made head of the Cerebral Tumour Research Group within the Cancer Genetics Laboratory in 2007. She has been instrumental in building the Australasian Brain Tumour Bank, obtained peer reviewed funding, published, had a provisional patent granted and is supervising four PhD students. Dr McDonald is the recipient of consecutive Cure For Life Fellowships (2006-07; 2007-08). She has active collaborations with researchers at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), St Vincents Hospital, Westmead Hospital, University of Otago, New Zealand and Western Australia Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR, UWA).

Key Activities of NSWOG Neuro-Oncology:

• The NSWOG Neuro-Oncology Priority Project, funded by the Cancer Institute NSW, addresses the cognitive and behavioural sequelae of brain tumour. An important component of the project is to improve the information resources about these problems for patients and their families. A series of fact sheets have been developed on typical cognitive and behavioural changes that may occur after diagnosis with a primary brain tumour.