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RICHARD SCOLYER
December 16, 1966 - June 7, 2026
There was an outpouring of emotion around Australia when news broke in March last year that Professor Richard Scolyer had just months to live after a recurrence of an aggressive and incurable brain tumour.
The world-renowned pathologist, skin cancer researcher and joint Australian of the Year for 2024 died in Sydney on Sunday aged 59. Scolyer had become a popular figure for the humble and open way he had spoken about having cancer and the experimental treatment he was going through in the hope of helping future brain cancer patients.
It’s not too much to say he had become beloved around the country.
As well as being the subject of a cover story in Good Weekend, two episodes of the ABC’s Australian Story, many emotional TV, radio and newspaper interviews and the memoir Brainstorm, Scolyer had been posting about his treatment regularly on social media since being diagnosed with a glioblastoma following a seizure in Poland in May 2023.
On his return to Sydney, where he was a senior staff specialist in anatomical pathology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, conjoint professor at the University of Sydney and co-medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia with Professor Georgina Long, Scolyer learnt that brain cancer treatment had barely advanced in almost 20 years.
For his type of tumour, median survival was just 14 months. Seventy five per cent of patients over 50, which he was, died within a year.
Instead of more conventional treatment to maximise his survival, Scolyer opted for a radical option proposed by Long that was based on what they had learnt as the institute pioneered immunotherapy for patients with advanced melanoma. It’s a treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to attack cancer cells.
Scolyer became the world’s first brain tumour patient to try a combination of three immunotherapy drugs before surgery and an anti-cancer vaccine. He also went through extensive medical testing to generate as much scientific data from his treatment as possible.
It was a brave decision.
Scolyer knew the treatment could have killed him much quicker than would otherwise have happened but he recognised that he was in a unique position – as a scientist who understood the benefits and risks of immunotherapy – to “have a crack”, as he would often say, at revolutionising brain cancer treatment.
During treatment, he and Long jointly became Australians of the Year for 2024. Scolyer’s emotional acceptance speech at the awards was heartbreaking. “I stand here tonight as a terminal brain cancer patient,” he said. “I’m only 57. I don’t want to die. I love my life, my family, my work. I’ve so much more to do and to give.”
His memoir Brainstorm became a bestseller and won social impact book of the year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.
While the experimental treatment did not save his life, it resulted in enough evidence that immunotherapy before surgery was a potentially viable treatment for brain cancer to prompt a clinical trial that opened in the US earlier this year. “I’m incredibly excited that this trial has commenced,” Scolyer said. “It takes a long time to get trials over the line but to be actually recruiting patients in the United States – and hopefully here soon – means we can test out the drugs to see if they make a difference.”
A peer-reviewed report on his treatment published in the international journal Nature Medicine was one of the last of more than 900 research papers that Scolyer had co-authored since his early years as a doctor.
Scolyer was born in Launceston, Tasmania, on December 16, 1966.
During a sporty childhood that gave him a love of the Tassie wilderness, he decided to become a doctor after seeing his mother struggle with health problems that started with a stroke. He studied medicine at the University of Tasmania and then worked at Royal Hobart Hospital.
Keen to see more of the world, Scolyer worked at Royal Adelaide Hospital, Gosford District Hospital (now Gosford Hospital) then two hospitals in England while travelling. He decided to become a pathologist after a paediatrician uncle, who knew he was interested in the field, sent him an application form for a trainee position at Canberra Hospital and he was accepted.
Scolyer finished his pathology training at RPA in Sydney then, under the mentorship of Professor Stan McCarthy and Professor John Thompson, he built a career specialising in melanoma. As the Sydney Melanoma Unit evolved into the Melanoma Institute Australia, he became an internationally recognised pathologist and researcher.
Scolyer and Dr Katie Nicoll fell in love when they were both pathology registrars at RPA. They had three children: Emily, Matthew and Lucy.
Scolyer was part of a team at the institute that used a transformative five-year federal grant to start the Australian Melanoma Genome Project. Using its research database and biospecimen bank, it mapped the entire genome of 500 melanomas – a new scientific frontier for understanding and treating the disease.
When he and Long became co-medical directors of the institute in 2017, they set a goal of working towards zero deaths from melanoma in Australia. Its work improved the five-year survival for patients with advanced melanoma from 5 per cent to 55 per cent.
Passionate, driven and dedicated to improving outcomes for patients, Scolyer was at the peak of his career – diagnosing more than 2000 cases from around the world every year and delivering talks at more than 400 conferences – when he was diagnosed with a glioblastoma.
When Long proposed the experimental immunotherapy treatment, Scolyer was immediately keen, despite recognising there was only a very slim chance it would save his life. “I knew it was the right thing to do,” he said in Brainstorm. “I wanted to push the boundaries, using science and our melanoma knowledge, and try something new.”
Scolyer had a year of immunotherapy – then more after the recurrence – and believes it helped him survive three years after diagnosis.
Despite the emotional challenges of living with incurable cancer, his video updates on social media often started with a cheerful “Hi everyone, it’s Richard Scolyer here”.
Away from work, he was an enthusiastic triathlete who raced for Australia at age group world championships in Chicago, Adelaide, Lausanne, Ibiza and, during treatment, Townsville.
He stayed active in other ways: attending Australian of the Year events around the country, hosting King Charles at the institute during his visit to Sydney – talking about its success with immunotherapy – and spending more time than he expected with Katie and their kids.
Through his life, Scolyer had many goals. When he learnt after brain surgery last year that the tumour had returned, he decided on some new ones – live as full a life as possible, enjoy the time he had left with his family and friends, and reach 250 Parkruns, the regular Saturday morning community event he always enjoyed.
On the morning of his 250th run in Sydney’s inner west, there was a celebratory atmosphere. As well as a record number of runners, there was a crowd of well-wishers, TV news teams, photographers and journalists. Crews from both A Current Affair and Australian Story filmed for documentaries that were to screen after his death.
Defying even his own doubts that he would last long enough to achieve his goal, Scolyer completed the five kilometres in the company of family and friends, and was warmly applauded all the way to the finish.
A few weeks later, he and his family jogged the 14 kilometres of the City2Surf to raise funds for cancer research.
In March this year, a scan revealed his brain tumour had continued to grow. “Not the best day ever,” Scolyer wrote on social media. “Whilst it is a bit disappointing, in the big picture it’s not the end of the road and I’ve got more to do.”
Undaunted, he travelled to Tasmania the next day to raise more funds by cycling almost 500 kilometres in the four Tasmanian stages of the Tour de Cure.
He remained humble about honours that came his way late in his life.
A significant one was the federal government announcing that it was committing $5.9 million to establish the Richard Scolyer Chair in Brain Cancer Research at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, one of the cancer centres where he was being treated. It is aimed at speeding up research into the disease, expanding clinical trials and improving outcomes for patients.
Characteristically, Scolyer felt awkward about the chair being in his name but he appreciated what it meant for cancer research and future treatment.
On April 28, Scolyer was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Sydney. His health had declined to the point where he was unable to speak in public but, knowing he would struggle, he had filmed a speech weeks earlier. He told medicine and health graduates that “the questions you ask, and the courage you show, can change lives. Be brave, be bold and challenge the status quo”.
Scolyer exemplified all of those things in the last three years of his life: bravery, boldness and challenging medicine’s status quo. For one final time, in the Great Hall of the university before the next generation of doctors and researchers, he was given a standing ovation.
Garry Maddox, a senior writer for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote the memoir Brainstorm with Richard Scolyer.
