Two life-saving medical researchers who are helping to cure melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, have been jointly-named as the 2024 Australian of the Year.
Professor Georgina Long AO and Professor Richard Scolyer AO’s enduring partnership has saved thousands of lives from melanoma, which in its advanced form was fatal just a decade ago.
The researchers from the University of Sydney received the Australian of the Year accolade from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the 2024 awards held at the National Arboretum in Canberra on Thursday evening.
It was especially poignant given Professor Scolyer was last year diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer.
He has selflessly offered himself as a test subject for pioneering research in a bid to help save brain cancer victims in the future.
Professor Georgina Long AO and Professor Richard Scolyer AO (pictured together) have been jointly-named Australian of the Year
Other awards went to an accidental paleontologist whose discovery of a dinosaur bone led to the resurgence of the academic discipline Down Under, an Olympic hero and a trail-blazing Indigenous educator.
Professor Long and Professor Scolyer, who are co-directors of the Melanoma Institute, issued a stark warning to all Australians ahead of Australia Day in their acceptance speech.
‘Sadly everyone knows someone with melanoma. It’s as Aussie as our golden beaches and our sweeping plains,’ Prof Scolyer told the audience.
‘We’re the melanoma gold medalists but this is not a gold medal to be proud of. In most cases, melanoma is preventable with sun safe behavior and prevention is always better than a cure.’
Prof Long added: ‘Yet tomorrow, thousands of Aussies will be soaking up the sun, working on their tans. Or as we see it, brewing their melanomas.
Professor Long and Professor Scolyer (pictured), who are co-directors of the Melanoma Institute, issued a stark warning to all Australians ahead of Australia Day in their acceptance speech
‘When it comes to tanning, we are swimming outside the flags. A tan is skin cells in trauma from overexposure to UV radiation from the sun.
‘There is nothing healthy about a tan, nothing.
‘Our bronzed Aussie culture is actually killing us.
‘So we call on advertisers and social media influencers: stop glamourising tanning. Or using it to sell or advertise or entertain. And to our fellow Australians, when you see it, call it out, demand change.’
The cancer experts have developed a number of world-leading treatments following world leading research in immunotherapy.
Professors Long and Scolyer pioneering treatment approach activates the patient’s immune system – as opposed to surgery and chemo or radiotherapies – meaning the malignant condition is now curable.
But just last year, Professor Scolyer was himself diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer.
He then offered himself as a test subject for a new form of experimental treatment, becoming the first person to ever receive a brain cancer vaccine.
Australian Olympic swimmer Emma McKeon (pictured), 29, has been recognised as Young Australian of the Year
Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon (pictured, centre) host a morning Tea with the Australian of the Year finalists at the Lodge in Canberra
The two professors have developed a series of world-first treatments based on their melanoma breakthroughs.
He then became the world’s first brain cancer patient to have pre-surgery combination immunotherapy, while also receiving doses of a personalised vaccine to combat the tumour.
Even though the experimental therapy was a risk to Professor Scolyer’s own life, it was through this treatment that the pair advanced the understanding of brain cancer, to the benefit of future patients.
While not completely cured of the cancer, recent brain scans have returned positive results, with no sign of a recurrence of the glioblastoma after eight months of treatment.
Professor Scolyer has also shared his progress and the unorthodox treatment process on social media, generating widespread public interest.
‘Ten years ago, if you had melanoma then it spread around your body – most patients were dead within a year. But now because of the incredible discoveries … we’re curing more than 50 per cent of patients, so we’re very proud of that,’ Professor Scolyer said.
Professor Georgina Long AO and Professor Richard Scolyer AO’s enduring partnership has saved thousands of lives from melanoma, which in its advanced form was fatal just a decade ago (the pair are pictured together)
The 2024 Australian of the Year awards, held at the National Arboretum in Canberra on Thursday evening, were presented by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (pictured)
‘We’re striving very hard to get to a goal of zero deaths from melanoma.’
One Australian is diagnosed with melanoma every 30 minutes, and another dies every six hours.
‘We’ve done a lot with treatment, but as everybody knows, prevention is better than cure,’ Professor Long added.
Chair of the National Australia Day Council John Foreman congratulated professors Long and Scolyer on receiving the award.
‘Georgina and Richard are leading work which is saving countless lives now and, thanks also to the personal commitment of Richard, will lead to an even more extraordinary impact on the health of people around the world in the future.’
Alongside professors Long and Scolyer, Mr Albanese also announced the recipients of Young, Senior and Australia’s Local Hero of the Year
YOUNG AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR 2024 – EMMA McKEON
Australian Olympic swimmer Emma McKeon, 29, has been recognised as Young Australian of the Year.
Despite missing out on qualifying for the 2012 London Olympic at age 18, the Queenslander became Australia’s most successful Olympian of all time by the time she was 27.
Pictured: Emma McKeon
After taking a career break, McKeon returned to the sport, claiming six podium finishes at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
At the 2020 Summer Olympics, she became the first female swimmer and the second woman in history to win seven medals in a single games. She has also broken Commonwealth Games, Olympic and World records.
SENIOR AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR 2024 – YALMAY YUNUPINGU
Yolngu elder and champion of Indigenous education, Yalmay Yunupingu has been named Senior Australian of the Year.
As an educator, Ms Yunupinju became known as a fierce advocate for bilingual education, where students are also taught their Indigenous language, Yolngu Matha, as well as English at the Yirrkala Bilingual School in north-east Arnhem Land.
Yolngu elder and champion of Indigenous education, Yalmay Yunupingu (pictured with Anthony Albanese) was named Senior Australian of the Year
Ms Yunupingu’s journey as an educator began when she started translating Dr Seuss books at her local library into her own Indigenous language. She qualified as a teacher and, with her husband, the late Mandawuy Yunupinju, forged a unique approach to bilingual learning.
In 2005, she was named Teacher of Excellence by the Northern Territory Department of Education and was an Honorary University Fellow at the Charles Darwin University. Since retiring, she has been teaching the next generation about traditional healing.
AUSTRALIA’S LOCAL HERO 2024 – DAVID ELLIOTT
David Elliot, a fourth-generation farmer, who chanced upon a dinosaur bone in 1999 to later become a palaeontologist and lead the field’s revival, has been named Australia’s Local Hero for 2024.
After Mr Elliott’s discovery in the Queensland outback town of Winton began drawing other palaeontologists to the region, he and his wife Judy founded the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History in 2002, and currently serves as its chair. The institution draws thousands of visitors a year to the town.
Mr Elliott (pictured), a fourth-generation farmer, whose chance discovery of Australia’s largest-ever dinosaur bone during a routine sheep mustering in 1999 sparked the revival of the country’s paleontology field, has been named Australia’s Local Hero for 2024
First operated on the couple’s property, the museum would conduct dinosaur digs, with Mr Elliot gathering an impressive collection of fossils.The museum now houses the country’s most significant collection of dinosaur artefacts and serves as a centre for Australian paleontological research and discovery.