Board and CEO

Mr Adrian Cosenza is the Chair of the Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association. He is also the current CEO of the Australian Orthopaedic Association (AOA), having joined AOA in July 2010. Under his leadership, Adrian has led the modernisation of AOA into a vibrant and respected leader in the field of orthopaedics. Today, the AOA is a major global benchmark for its orthopaedic surgical and education program as well as addressing leading aspirations in research, ethics and professionalism.

Adrian is an experienced CEO and seasoned director, having served in an executive capacity in three industries including medical education, technology and banking and finance. He is the current CEO of AOA Research Foundation, the first national CEO CookOff Brand Ambassador for OzHarvest, current Chair of the Australian Consensus Framework for Ethical Collaboration in the Healthcare sector, and is the Australasian Ambassador for the International Medical Education Leaders Forum serving on the Global Planning committee. Adrian has served on the Board of 14 companies covering four industries in four different international jurisdictions. He has three degrees including a Master of Business Administration from the global-leading IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a Masters of Commerce. He is also Fellow of three professional bodies covering governance, financial services and accounting.

Adrian’s passion is to create an environment for people to perform to the best of their abilities and assist organisations in achieving excellent outcomes.

Dr Denise Caruso has been leading ANZSA for over 10 years.

She holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Texas/MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she was a National Institutes of Health (USA) Fellow in Tumour Immunology and has been at the forefront of immunotherapy for solid tumours research.

Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Denise held research roles at Harvard Medical School, Boston and at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Her previous role was as Senior Research Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at the Children’s Cancer Center at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, where she conducted immunotherapy clinical trials and basic science research.

Denise is also a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Prof. Jayesh Desai is an academically-focused Medical Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre/Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC).

He Co-Chairs the Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma service at Peter Mac, and acts as the Research and Education lead for the VCCC in sarcoma.

Prof. Jayesh has been intimately involved in ANZSA since its inception, having co-founded the ASSG, and acted as its inaugural Deputy-Chair, and then Chair.

He has extensive experience in developing new drugs for cancers, with a particular focus on sarcoma, and is Head of Early Drug Development Trials at Peter Mac and co-heads the Precision Medicine/genomics program at the VCCC, enabling these activities.

He has served on several key national/international committees, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology and World Sarcoma Network. Prof. Jayesh completed his Medical Oncology training in Melbourne in 2002. He completed a translational research fellowship in sarcoma at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.

A/Prof David Gyorki is a specialist surgical oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre with a particular interest in the management of patients with soft tissue sarcoma and melanoma. A/Prof Gyorki is an active member of the Transatlantic and Australasian Retroperitoneal Sarcoma Working Group and is actively involved in a large registry of patients with this cancer to better understand the disease and the best way to optimise treatment.

A/Prof Gyorki is also involved in translational research in tumour immunology and is particularly interested in understanding the role of novel immunotherapy agents to reduce the risk of recurrence for patients having surgery for cancer.  He serves as the ASCO Systemic Therapy for Melanoma Guidelines Working Group and is the Chair of the governance committee of the international retroperitoneal sarcoma registry.

Prof Angela Hong MBBS, MMed, PhD, FRANZCR is a Professor at Sydney Medical School of the University of Sydney. She is a radiation oncologist and has been a member of the Multidisciplinary Bone and Soft Tissue Tumour Clinic at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital/Chris O’Brien Lifehouse for the past 15 years.

As a clinician scientist, her research focuses on developing innovative radiation therapy technique and combination treatments to improve the outcome for patients with sarcoma.

Prof Angela is the co-Chair of ANZSA’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

A/Prof Marianne Phillips is a Consultant Paediatrician and Adolescent Oncologist and Palliative Care Specialist at the Perth Children’s Hospital. Originally from the UK, A/Prof Marianne has a significant interest and clinical acumen in the management of sarcomas and is the lead clinician for the Western Australian paediatric and adolescent solid tumour and palliative oncology services.

She is a member of the Western Australian Cancer & Palliative Care Network sarcoma tumour collaborative, member of the Australia & New Zealand Children’s Haematology & Oncology Group (ANZCHOG) solid tumour committee, institutional principal investigator for the international collaborative group Children’s Oncology Group (COG) and a member of the international Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS).

A/Prof Marianne was instrumental in establishing the first specific adolescent oncology inpatient facilities in Australia to address the recognised specific, separate needs of adolescent oncology patients.

A/Prof Peter Steadman is an orthopaedic surgeon with special interests in upper and lower limb general orthopaedics, arthroplasty and bone sarcoma. Since becoming a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons in 1995, he became an A/Prof at University of Queensland in 2008 and has been a specialist practicing in both public and private hospitals. He was also a Federal Director of the Australian Orthopaedic Association (AOA) governing board and national Treasurer.

A/Prof Peter was the founding member of the Australian Sarcoma Group before it merged with the Australasian Sarcoma Study Group to form ANZSA, in which he now serves as a Board member. He is also ANZSA’s Orthopaedic Chair in Australia.

Professor Richard Carey Smith is a specialist adult and paediatric Orthopaedic surgeon who has specific expertise in Orthopaedic oncology (primary and secondary bone and soft tissue tumours), hip and knee surgery (hip and knee primary and complex revision surgery) and Osseointegration surgery.

Richard is an experienced orthopaedic surgeon with peer reviewed publications, has a broad range of orthopaedics and science and continues to present at national and international meetings and is active in the University Teaching Hospital.

Richard is an Examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons Orthopaedic trainees and is heavily involved in many Orthopaedic and Sarcoma boards.

Dr. Wayne Nicholls is a paediatric and adolescent oncologist at the Royal Brisbane Children’s Hospital with over 20 years’ experience and holds a particular interest in brain tumours and sarcomas.

Wayne has been a member of ANZSA and an active contributor to the ANZSA Scientific Advisory Committee for several years before joining the Board of Directors

Clinical A/Prof. Fiona Maclean BAppSc, MBBS (Hons), FRCPA, GAICD graduated from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours. She initially worked as a resident medical officer at the Concord Repatriation General Hospital, where she was awarded Intern of the Year. A/Prof. Maclean holds the position of Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University.

She has authored two chapters in the current edition of Sternberg’s Diagnostic Surgical Pathology, and one chapter in the current edition of Histology for Pathologists, both of which are premier textbooks in the fields of pathology and histology. She is President of the Australasian Division of the International Academy of Pathology (IAP). A/Prof. Maclean has special interests in urogenital and musculoskeletal pathology.

Ms. Sarah Cheung is a chartered accountant and serves as the chairperson of the Consumer Advisory panel. She first joined ANZSA as a consumer representative in April 2022, having been diagnosed with Retroperitoneal Liposarcoma in early 2021.  She is currently the only representative from NZ and resides in Auckland.

Sarah is passionate about raising Sarcoma awareness and helping to provide relevant and trustworthy information to patients, carers and survivors.  She also hopes that there is better equality and uniformity with the level of care provided to Sarcoma patients who come from indigenous, ethnic minority and regional backgrounds.

Outside of work, she enjoys watercolour painting and spending time with her family.

Dr Jason Cain, PhD, is the Research Group Head of the Developmental and Cancer Biology, and the Sarcoma Programs at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. Jason is a developmental and cancer biologist involved in full time discovery and translational research for the last 17 years. He obtained his PhD from Monash University and undertook postdoctoral training at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada. Jason’s research focus is on understanding the roles of critical embryonic signalling pathways and epigenetic mechanisms in normal and abnormal development leading to childhood, adolescent and young adult cancers, including sarcomas.

Jason’s work has underpinned a Phase II clinical trial for the small molecule SMO inhibitor, sonidegib, in sarcoma and more recently a Phase II clinical trial for the histone deacetylase inhibitor, panobinostat in childhood osteosarcoma and malignant rhaboid tumours.