Professor Richard Scolyer AO, one of the world’s most highly cited melanoma pathologists who volunteered to become patient zero in a world-first brain cancer treatment, has died. He was 59.
Scolyer was diagnosed with grade-four glioblastoma in May 2023 and given six to eight months to live. He died on Sunday, almost three years after that diagnosis – defying survival odds he understood better than almost anyone.
His death was announced through an open letter he wrote before his final weeks of illness. “I haven’t sugar-coated my journey and I sincerely thank you for allowing me the space and opportunity to share it with you, warts and all,” he wrote.
He was among the world’s most published figures in melanoma pathology, with more than 1,000 peer-reviewed publications and a seat on the World Health Organization’s skin cancer editorial board.
When his diagnosis came, he refused to accept the standard protocol.
Glioblastoma treatment had advanced little since the early 2000s – surgery, then a standard course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
After his diagnosis, Scolyer and his Melanoma Institute Australia co-director, Professor Georgina Long, looked to their own melanoma research for a different approach. He became the first brain cancer patient in the world to receive combination immunotherapy before surgery, alongside a personalised cancer vaccine.
“Unfortunately for me, I got one of the worst of the worst brain cancers, where there isn’t a cure for it,” Scolyer previously told Australian Story. “Bugger that. I’m not happy to accept that.”
The treatment bought him time the statistics said he shouldn’t have. He remained cancer-free for 18 months. When the tumour returned in March 2025, Scolyer kept going – completing his 250th park run, riding the Tour de Cure charity race alongside his son and brother just months before he died.
Scolyer was jointly named Australian of the Year in 2024 alongside Long.
He received nine NSW Premier’s Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2021.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the country had lost “one of our brightest lights and one of our biggest hearts”.
An open letter from Professor Richard Scolyer
My fellow Australians,
I pen this letter as a final goodbye to all those I have had the immense privilege of loving, sharing life’s adventures with, working alongside and meeting during what can only be described as a life filled with happiness, optimism, opportunity and passion.
My intention is for this letter to be published upon my passing — as my final farewell.
I’ve spent the last three years being open and honest about my journey with glioblastoma (brain cancer), in part to be transparent about what cancer patients and their families go through, and in part to provide hope and inspiration that we can and should continue to push boundaries to propel the cancer field forward.
Having dedicated my 35-year working life to patient care, cancer research and improving lives, I wanted to keep contributing, even in my darkest hour.
I am extremely proud of my impact — from my lifelong career as a world leading melanoma pathologist and cancer researcher, to being the first patient to receive experimental brain cancer treatment based on melanoma science I helped develop, followed by participation in development of a brain cancer clinical trial and advocacy for greater investment in brain cancer research.
I sincerely hope the scientific data and awareness I have generated will provide a platform for others to build upon to ultimately make a difference for future cancer patients.
I am perhaps lucky that the physical and cognitive impacts of the final stages of brain cancer mean that I am unlikely to have been aware of my own decline over these final weeks.
I write this knowing that my wonderful family would have been by my side every minute, as they have been throughout my cancer journey. Like all families living with cancer, the impacts have been far wider than just on me.
Since my diagnosis in May 2023, our family has been thrown challenges that we didn’t plan or want. But those same challenges have also drawn us closer and reinforced that family is everything.
I cannot thank my beautiful wife Katie and my adored children Emily, Matthew and Lucy enough for their love, their support, their strength, and their compassion. They are shining examples of the best of humanity and make me extremely proud.
Much love also to my elderly Mum and Dad in Tasmania, my brother Mark and many friends for their strength and support particularly during these recent years.
My childhood was full of adventures built on “how”, not “if”, which set me on a path to being inquisitive and truly believing nothing is impossible.
If you will allow me one final indulgence, composing this letter encouraged me to reflect proudly on my role in generating new evidence ultimately leading to life-saving advances in melanoma diagnosis and treatment.
I helped start what is now the world’s largest melanoma biobank, became the world’s most published melanoma pathologist authoring over 1,000 research publications, and lectured hundreds of times at conferences across the globe.
I am also proud to have held leadership roles at the American Joint Committee on Cancer and the World Health Organisation and many other international organisations.
In addition to my roles in the development of breakthroughs in melanoma treatment, including immunotherapy, and the subsequent soaring of advanced melanoma survival rates, my mentoring of the next generation of clinical doctors (including pathologists) and cancer researchers has perhaps been the greatest reward to come from my life work.
I have always been driven by the belief that we all have a responsibility to try to change the future for others and leave the world a better place.
From mentoring PhD students in the translational research lab and early career clinicians in hospitals, to taking on the undeniably risky experimental treatment for brain cancer and undergoing swathes of voluntary medical tests purely to advance scientific knowledge of brain cancer — I have lived that ethos to the fullest.
I was incredibly humbled when the federal government recently named the Chair in Brain Cancer Research at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse in my honour.
Such public accolades have never sat entirely comfortably with me, but I am delighted that much needed brain cancer research will continue to be funded long after I have gone.
To my research and clinical colleagues, I implore you to stay inquisitive and brave and keep striving to break new ground.
To all cancer patients, I encourage you to consider enrolling in research and clinical trials, if on offer. And to government and the wider community, please keep funding science and medical research. This is the most impactful way that you too can make a difference.
Perhaps the greatest lesson to come from these last three years is that cancer does not define us.
It may be the current road we are travelling, but it is not our entire journey. A terminal cancer diagnosis does however provide clarity as to what truly matters.
It shines a spotlight on the importance of relationships, on true friendship and on selflessness. Whilst cancer may not define us, our ability to empathise with and have compassion towards others does.
That is true in all facets of life, and I am confident those traits will continue to guide Australians towards acceptance and support for all.
My final message to all Australians is to say thankyou for your outpouring of love and support for me and my family.
Those of you I met during my travels as joint 2024 Australian of the Year, my amazing online community which spans many countries, and of course my hometown Tasmanians — you’ve laughed with me, cried with me, and provided encouragement and support to keep going just when I needed it most.
I haven’t sugar coated my journey and I sincerely thank you for allowing me the space and opportunity to share it with you, warts and all.
I hope I have in some small way made the road ahead easier and smoother for others.
If my legacy was to continue beyond these words, I would be delighted and humbled to be remembered as a proud everyday Aussie who “gave it a crack”, and in doing so, inspired others to pursue their dreams and passions with humility, love and compassion.
With much love and gratitude,
Richard
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