PaCCSC & CST Annual Research Forum 2024

Professor Meera Agar

Professor Meera Agar is a Professor of Palliative Medicine and the Director of the Centre for Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation (IMPACCT) as well as the Chair of Cancer Symptom Trials (CST). 

Meera is a palliative medicine physician with particular interests in delirium, supportive care needs of people with brain tumours, and geriatric oncology. She is also the Chair of Palliative Care Australia (PCA).

Professor Brian Le

Professor Brian Le is a Palliative Care Physician and Medical Oncologist, as well as Precinct Director of Palliative Care at The Royal Melbourne Hospital (appointed 2008), and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (appointed 2016). He is an Honorary Professor (Clinical) at The University of Melbourne (appointed 2009).

Brian’s other appointments include honorary associate Fellow in Palliative Care, University of Technology Sydney, and he is Co-Chair of the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC).

Dr Wei Lee

Dr Wei Lee is a palliative care physician and researcher based in the northern districts of Sydney. He is the Director of Palliative Care in the Mater Hospital (North Sydney) and a palliative care specialist in HammondCare North and North Shore Private Hospital.

Wei is passionate about research and the teaching of symptom management in the palliative care setting, holding a senior lecturer position in the University of Sydney. He has completed a doctoral program exploring depression in the end-of-life setting in the University of Technology Sydney.

Wei was the coordinating principal investigator for SKIPMDD, a phase II feasibility study assessing the feasibility of subcutaneous ketamine infusion for treating major depressive disorder in palliative patients. He currently serves as the deputy chair of the PaCCSC/CST Pain symptom nodes.

Associate Professor Tim Luckett – Closing

Associate Professor Tim Luckett is a Senior Lecturer (Research) at Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation (IMPACCT).

Tim’s research aims to learn from people with life-limiting illness about the best ways to support self-management of symptoms such as breathlessness and pain. His fields of special interest include symptom management, shared decision making, and advance care planning.

Professor Rebeccah Slater

Professor Rebeccah Slater is the Professor of Paediatric Neuroscience and Senior Wellcome Fellow at the University of Oxford. She is also a Professorial Fellow at St. John’s College. Her work focuses on understanding the mechanisms that underlie the development of human pain perception, where she uses non-invasive brain imaging tools to explore the development of pain perception in the human nervous system.  A core focus of Rebeccah’s work is to translate basic neuroscientific understanding into the design and development of clinical trials that aim to assess the analgesic efficacy of pain-relieving interventions in infants.

Dr Jessica Lee

Dr Jessica Lee is palliative medicine physician and research lead at Concord Centre for Palliative Care. She is a member of the CST Pain Symptom Node. She is also completing a PhD with IMPACCT on the management of Cancer Pain. She is passionate about developing a positive research culture in palliative care and fostering collaboration between researchers and clinicians across NSW, Australia and internationally.

Professor Melanie Lovell

Professor Melanie Lovell is a Palliative Medicine physician, senior staff specialist with HammondCare in Northern Sydney. She is a senior academic in the Palliative Centre, Clinical Associate Professor with University of Sydney and Adjunct Professor with University of Technology, Sydney.

Melanie’s research interests are in cancer pain and health services research. She was founding Chair of the Cancer Council Australia’s Pain Management in Adults guideline.

Melanie is Chair of the PaCCSC/CST Pain Symptom Node Subcommittee, which conducts trials across the spectrum of research methodologies and translation.

Professor Paul Glare

Professor Paul Glare is Chair in Pain Medicine and Direct of the Pain Management Research Centre at the University of Sydney. He is also Head of Specialty, Pain Medicine in the Sydney Medical Program as well as a specialist physician in pain medicine at Royal North Shore Hospital.

Prior to his current appointments in 2016, Paul worked as a clinical academic in palliative care for 25 years, firstly at RPAH and Westmead in Sydney and then at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.

Paul is an experienced clinical researcher in pain and palliative care. His total NHMRC grant funding to date exceeds $5 million. He is a a Chief Investigator on current NHMRC and MRFF grants.

He has published 124 peer-reviewed articles with 150 co-authors (37% from overseas), including in the Lancet, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology and PAIN. He has almost 7000 citations, a h-index 37 and Field Weighted Citation Impact of 1.7 (Scopus Feb 2024).

Paul’s two current research interests are (1) leveraging health behaviour change to assist opioid de-prescribing in chronic pain (Top 0.3% researchers world wide, SciVal Feb 2024); (2) pain in cancer survivors (Top 4% world-wide).  

Associate Professor Anthony Herbert 

Associate Professor Anthony Herbert has been Director of the Paediatric Palliative Care Service at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, Brisbane for the past 9 years. He has interests in both research and education and has found perinatal palliative care to be a key component of his clinical work.

Anthony is the project lead for the QuoCCA project (Quality of Care Collaborative Australia) and has research interests supported by the Queensland University of Technology including communication, advance care planning and symptom management.

Professor Toby Newton-John

Professor Toby Newton-John is a Professor of Clinical Psychology, and Head of the Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney.

Toby completed training in Clinical Psychology in Sydney, Australia before completing a PhD at Kings College, London UK. He worked in a variety of mental health settings (public and private hospitals, inpatient and outpatient chronic pain services) for over 20 years prior to entering academia.

He has published over 90 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has co-edited two major textbooks, predominantly in the area of the psychology of chronic physical illness. His research is cited 98% more often than the global average in his field (FWCI 1.98, 2018-22, SciVal 2/2024).

He is a Chief Investigator on research grants totalling more than $9.6 million since 2020, and has supervised 9 PhD students to completion. Toby continues to practice as a Clinical Psychologist and has a part time clinical role at Northern Pain Centre in Sydney.

John Stubbs AM 

John is a committed and passionate advocate for people affected by cancer and chronic disease. He holds degrees in Accounting and Arts and is a regular speaker at medical conferences in Australia and internationally about health policy, advocacy, clinical trials, research and the benefits of consumer involvement.

He was awarded an Honorary Associate of the University of Sydney - School of Medicine in 2009 for work in the promotion of Research and Clinical Trials in Australia and a Recognition Award from the Federal Department of Health in 2011 for – "long standing commitment to advancing the quality of radiation oncology services in this country".

In 2023 he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for 'ongoing support for people affected by cancer and contribution to community health'.

Dr Aaron K Wong

Dr Aaron K Wong is a dual-trained Palliative Care Physician and Medical Oncologist and Early Career Researcher. Aaron established the Palliative Care Clinical Trials Unit at Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre (2018), and is currently Clinical Trials Lead at the Parkville Integrated Palliative Care Service, including the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and The Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Aaron is Chief Investigator and Associate Investigator of several multi-centre Phase I – IV Palliative Care Clinical Trials, involving opioids in cancer pain, medicinal cannabis in palliative care, insomnia in palliative care, device use for refractory breathlessness, and building an opioid pharmacogenomics registry for cancer pain.

He is undertaking a PhD supported by an NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship focusing on investigating biomarkers using pharmacogenomics, for optimal selection of opioids for pain control relating to cancer and its treatments.

Professor James Downar

Dr James Downar is a Critical Care and Palliative Care physician in Ottawa. He graduated from McGill Medical School and completed residency training in Internal Medicine, Critical Care and Palliative Care at the University of Toronto. He has a Master’s degree in Bioethics from the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto.

James is Head of the Division of Palliative Care at the University of Ottawa, and a Professor in the Department of Medicine. He is the chair of Palliative and End-of-Life Care at the University of Ottawa, the co-chair of the Pan-Canadian Palliative Care Research Collaborative, the chair of the Ethical Affairs committee of the Canadian Critical Care Society, and the co-chair of the Ontario Palliative Care Network’s Provincial Education Steering Committee.

James has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, has been principal investigator on more than 20 peer-reviewed grants, and is a former Associated Medical Services Phoenix Fellow.

James also led several provincial and national efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.He was involved in planning for medication shortages for both critical care and palliative care and led the development of a critical care triage system for the event of major surge in critically ill patients His research interests include communication and decision-making for seriously ill patients and their families; Palliative Care for the Critically Ill; and Palliative Care for Noncancer Illnesses.”

Associate Professor Hao-Wen Sim

Associate Professor Hao-Wen Sim is a medical oncologist at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre and Chris O'Brien Lifehouse in Sydney. Additionally, he serves as a Clinical Lead at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. He leads the Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (COGNO) International Clinical Research Subcommittee, serving as Deputy Chair in 2021 and Chair from 2021 to 2024, through which he fosters global collaboration and innovation in neuro-oncology research.

His areas of expertise encompass neuro-oncology, upper gastrointestinal oncology and clinical trials. Hao-Wen earned a Master of Biostatistics degree from The University of Sydney, where he was awarded the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia Star Graduate Award, Judy Simpson Biostatistics Scholarship, Les Irwig General Epidemiology Award and the Australasian Epidemiological Association Top Student Prize. Hao-Wen also completed a neuro-oncology fellowship at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada.

Dr Amanda Landers

Dr Amanda Landers was born and bred in rural Waikato. The Deep South is where her passion for palliative care began as a house surgeon. She enjoys talking with patients/whānau facing life-limiting illness, helping them to plan and prepare for the future and making sure symptoms are well-managed. She has worked in Wellington and Darwin, Australia, in some extremely remote environments.

Amanda is a senior clinical lecturer at the Otago Medical School in Christchurch and loves to teach others about palliative care. She works alongside the Māori/Indigenous Health Institute as a tutor and has lectured on palliative care in the Pacific. Amanda was part of the team in Fiji that helped launch local palliative care. Her current research interests are medical education, malabsorption in pancreatic cancer and models of care for severe COPD. Amanda is the Principal Investigator of the Aotearoa Australia Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Treatment (ASPERT) multidisciplinary research team. 

Dr Eric Finkelstein

Dr Eric Finkelstein is Professor of Health Services and Systems Research at the Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore and the Executive Director of the Lien Centre for Palliative Care. He also holds appointments at NUS School of Public Health, Duke University Global Health Institute and Duke School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health Sciences.

Eric’s research focuses on the economic causes and consequences of health behaviours, with a primary emphasis on the use of traditional and Behavioral economic incentives to influence behaviours in ways to improve the public’s health. Recent research also focuses on studies to better understand the complicated decisions that revolve around end of life care. He has published over 300 manuscripts and 2 books in these areas, and also successfully commercialized an Obesity Cost Calculator for employers and insurers.

Based on google scholar, he has an h-index of 75, i10-index of 245 and his publications have been cited over 100,000 times, including in the landmark Supreme Court decision upholding the U.S. Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). He was included in the list of the World's Most Highly Cited Researchers in 2015, 2016 and 2017 by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics and among the Top 2% of scientists worldwide in a study by Stanford University in 2021.

Catherine Buchan

Catherine Buchan is a highly motivated and experienced advanced practice respiratory and sleep nurse consultant having worked at Alfred Health for over 20 years. She has a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Nursing Critical Care and a Master of Nursing Science. Catherine’s research to date has evaluated the role of nurse-led clinics and services and new models of care within multidisciplinary teams. Catherine is a research assistant and PhD candidate in Associate Professor Natasha Smallwood’s research team at Respiratory research@alfred, Monash University.

Catherine holds leadership positions within the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, including (but not limited to) serving on the professional standards subcommittee, the Australia New Zealand Respiratory Audit Program Steering Committee and as the Australian convenor of the respiratory nurses’ special interest group.

Catherine provides holistic biopsychosocial person-centred integrated care for people with respiratory and sleep problem where evidence is translated into practice with the aim for better healthcare outcomes.

Dr Slavica Kochovska

Dr Slavica Kochovska is an Adjunct Research Fellow with IMPACCT (Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation), University of Technology Sydney. Dr Kochovska is a Research Fellow with the School of Science, Medicine and Health at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

Dr Kochovska is a palliative care researcher with an academic background in linguistics. Dr Kochovska holds a Bachelor of Arts (Highest Honours) and Masters in Linguistics (First Class Honours) (University of Auckland, NZ) and a PhD in Linguistics (Rutgers University, USA). She was the inaugural Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC).

Her primary areas of research include symptom science, patient-clinician communication and the science of securing research consent in priority populations. Her research program is developing novel symptom assessment methods to enable a more systematic recognition of chronic symptom burden for people living with life-limiting illnesses and their families and evidence-based health system responses.

Her research track record and expertise include randomised controlled trials, qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods and population studies, systematic reviews, environmental scans, and implementation science. She also has expertise in healthcare project management and quality improvement.

Dr Naveen Salins

Dr Salins is an accomplished medical professional who graduated with honours in Internal Medicine MD from KMC Manipal in 2003. He has extensive experience in Palliative Medicine, having completed three years of specialist fellowship training at the Lyell McEwin Hospital and working as a consultant at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in South Australia. Upon returning to India, Dr Salins held clinical and academic positions at HCG Bangalore Institute of Oncology and Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. He is currently the Professor and Head of the Department of Palliative Medicine and Supportive Care at KMC Manipal. He is also the Coordinator of the Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Care Centre.

Dr Salins was awarded a Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) Fellowship by the Royal College of Physicians London and Glasgow in 2020. He completed his PhD in palliative care from Lancaster University, UK, in 2021. He is also an Honorary Professor of Medicine at Cardiff University, UK, and was appointed Associate Dean of Research in 2023.

Dr Salins has an impressive record of 110 peer-reviewed publications and has contributed to over 50 ongoing and completed research projects. He has established international research collaborations with esteemed institutions such as the University of California, San Francisco, Lancaster University, and Hull York University, UK. Dr Salins has received various national and international grants, including NIH/NIC, APHN, and ICMR. His expertise has been recognised by serving on commissions and technical committees of organisations such as the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the National Cancer Grid, the Medical Council of India, and the National Board of Examinations. Dr Salins is also the Secretary General of the Academy of Palliative, a national organisation committed to improving specialist and generalist palliative care education in India. Additionally, he chairs the subcommittee for palliative care in low-resource settings for the Lancet Oncology Commission as a commissioner.

Dr Salins served as Editor of the Indian Journal of Palliative Care for seven years and Associate Editor of BMC Palliative Care for three years. Additionally, he is the Course Director for the BMJ Online Palliative Care Course and Director of the EPEC India Program in partnership with Northwestern University Chicago. Dr Salins has received numerous awards for his contributions to the field, including the Best Outgoing Student award in 2003 and the Best Teacher award in 2005 from the KMC Manipal. He was also part of a team that received the Best Palliative Care Service award from the Government of South Australia in 2008. Dr Salins has been recognised internationally for his expertise, receiving the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) accreditation award for Integrated Oncology and Palliative Care in 2013, 2016, and 2019, the ISCCM Presidential Citation Award in 2015, and the International Award for Excellence in Palliative Care in 2020. He also accredited his department as the International Reference Centre for End-of-Life Care by the International Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. Moreover, under his leadership, the department was accredited by the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer for Excellence in Cancer Supportive Care.

Dr Hiromichi Matsuoka

Dr Hiromichi Matsuoka is the chief of the Division of Supportive and Palliative Care Development Centre, Department of Psycho-Oncology, at the National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo, Japan.

He graduated from Nara Medical University and Kindai University Graduate School. He completed training in Pain Medicine, Psychosomatic Internal Medicine, Palliative Medicine, and Medical Oncology.

In 2017, he became a visiting professor at UTS in Australia. After returning to Japan, he became an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Kindai University (concurrently at the Palliative Care Center), and assumed his current position in July 2020. He is a Principal Investigator of the "Phase III, international, multicentre, double-blind, dose increment, parallel-arm, randomised controlled trial of duloxetine versus pregabalin for opioid-unresponsive neuropathic cancer pain" supported by Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (Research Project for Practical Application of Innovative Cancer Therapy) and Australian grant National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) .

He has published over 50 peer reviewed international journal articles and he is a Chief Investigator on research grants totalling more than $3.0 million.