Top doctor defies cancer prognosis with world-first treatment

Professor Richard Scolyer is a world recognised leader in melanoma research, named co-Australian of the Year this year, with his friend and medical oncologist Dr Georgina Long. In May last year, while in Europe attending medical conferences, he had a seizure and collapsed. Then came the devastating news he had a glioblastoma brain tumor - which has a very low survival rate and typically involves surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy. So Richard Scolyer became a guinea pig for a world-first experimental trial of immunotherapy for melanoma patients, the side effects of which had a 60 per cent chance of killing him. Professor Scolyer has just published a book about his experience called Brainstorm.