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In recognition of their pioneering work in melanoma research, treatment, and education, melanoma research pioneers Professors Georgina Long AO and Richard Scolyer AO were this week named joint Australians of the Year 2024.

The award is a testament, said a statement by the Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), “to their global leadership in transforming melanoma, Australia’s national cancer, into a largely curable disease and saving many thousands of lives, and their intellect and dedication in applying melanoma science to develop world-first treatments for Richard’s brain cancer.”

In their moving acceptance speech to the National Press Club, the pair urged a radical rethink of Australian sun safety and our relationship with tanned skin, and tanning.

“Our ‘bronzed Aussie’ culture is actually killing us,” Long said, “so we call on advertisers and social media influences to stop glamourising tanning [and] using it to sell or advertise for entertainment.”

They challenged us as a nation to imagine the outcry if smoking was still glamourised in the same way as tanning is today.

“We must elevate sun safety to equal status with other life-saving safety measures like wearing a seatbelt or a helmet,” Scolyer said.

Long and Scolyer’s scientific partnership – the pair are Co-Medical Directors of the MIA – has led to the use of immunotherapy in the treatment of melanoma. But it was Scolyer’s own 2023 Stage 4 brain cancer diagnosis that has led the researchers to groundbreaking discoveries in the applications of their immunotherapy approach.

Future cancer sufferers may potentially now benefit from Professor Scolyer’s preparedness to risk his own life by submitting himself to his and Professor Long’s own experimental brain cancer immunotherapy treatment.

“I’m one of the many thousands of cancer patients who have travelled this path, and thousands [more] will follow,” he explained.

“Devising this world-first experimental treatment for my type of brain cancer was bold. For me, the decision to take on Georgina’s groundbreaking plan was a no-brainer. Here was an opportunity for us to crack another incurable cancer and make a difference, if not for me, then for others.

“From where I stand, with the future now measured in months rather than decades, it’s impossible for me to properly articulate how proud and hopeful this also makes me.”

IN FULL: Prof Richard Scolyer AO & Prof Georgina Long AO’s Address to the National Press Club