Oncologists who have worked to improve outcomes for melanoma patients and foster greater equality in cancer care are among those recognised at the NSW Premier’s awards for outstanding cancer research.
Associate Professor Inês Esteves Domingues Pires da Silva took out the 2025 Outstanding Mid Career Researcher award for her work on melanoma and immuno-oncology, including her focus on understanding mechanisms of resistance and identifying predictive biomarkers.
Her research has helped foster an understanding of how metastatic sites, like the liver, can influence treatment efficacy among melanoma patients.
Associate Professor Inês Esteves Domingues Pires da Silva.
A medical oncologist at the Melanoma Institute of Australia, Associate Professor Silva has authored 90 peer-reviewed papers in journals including The Lancet Oncology and New England Journal of Medicine and serves on the scientific committees for ESMO and SMR.
Meanwhile, Associate Professor Abhijit Pal was awarded the 2025 Improving Equitable Outcomes award in recognition of his drive to improve equitable cancer outcomes for patients across NSW.
He is a lead researcher behind a co-designed pilot program in the state involving Arabic bilingual patient navigators, and received a SPHERE-funded grant to investigate barriers to research participation in the South Western Sydney Local Health District and South Eastern Sydney Local Health District.
Professor Paul Keall was awarded the 2025 Outstanding Cancer Researcher of the Year award for his work in cancer imaging and radiation therapy technology.
Associate Professor Abhijit Pal won the Improving Equitable Outcomes Award.
He was recognised for his work pioneering technologies including 4D CT imaging for lungs, which has become a global clinical standard for imaging for lung cancer radiotherapy patients.
Other winners recognised at the awards on November 25 included:
• Outstanding early career researcher: Dr Brooke Nickel, whose research with Breastscreen is evaluating the benefits, harms and clinical pathways for breast density notification in Australia.
• Rising star PhD candidate award: Ms Chelsea Mayoh, whose work is developing and implementing multi-omics pipelines which have helped find actionable molecular targets for 2,800 paediatric cancer patients.
• Outstanding clinical trials unit award: The Liverpool Medical Oncology Clinical Trials Unit, for its growth over the past few years to now support 50 active clinical trials.
• Cancer control innovation award (joint winners): The Nurse-led Geriatric Oncology Model of Care program at Liverpool Hospital, supporting older patients with cancer.
The ASTuTE Clinical Trial Team were joint winners for their work investigating an AI-precision medicine test for guiding treatment decisions in prostate cancer.
• Consumer engagement in cancer research: Mr Eric Yeung, for his work as a advocate for culturally responsive cancer care and his role as president of CanRevive Incorporated, one of the country’s largest community support organisations for Chinese speaking patients with cancer.
Read the full bios of award winners via NSW Health [link here].