All posts by Hansni Bhagani

Orly Lavee is a specialist haematologist with interests in both malignant and non-malignant haematology who holds dual fellowship with both the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. Orly sees patients in clinics held at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre, satellite clinics in Wagga Wagga as well as patients admitted to St Vincents private Hospital. Orly is a Conjoint Lecturer for the University of New South Wales and is a member of the EviQ Haematology Reference Committee. As well as her broad interest across general haematology, Orly also coordinates the Long Term Follow-up of Bone Marrow Transplant patients.

Orly obtained a double degree in science and medicine from the University of New South Wales in 2003, graduating with honours. She has spent time working at St Vincents Hospital since internship but had gained experience across a range of campuses as part of her clinical and laboratory haematology training. She has completed a clinical fellowship in paediatric haematology at Sydney Children’s Hospital fostering an interest in Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) haematology as well as a clinical fellowship in Bone Marrow Transplantation at St Vincent’s Hospital.

Dr Hao-Wen Sim is a medical oncologist based at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre (St Vincent’s Hospital), Chris O’Brien Lifehouse (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital) and NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. His subspecialty expertise and research interests are neuro-oncology and gastrointestinal oncology.

Dr Sim graduated from the University of Melbourne with Honours. After completing general medicine and medical oncology training in Melbourne, he pursued a three-year research fellowship at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada under the supervision of Professor Warren Mason and Associate Professor Jennifer Knox.

Recent accomplishments include the NOYCIA Young Investigator Award, ASCO Merit Award and CAHON Young Investigator Award. He was successful grant recipient for the 2017 GUMOC-Astellas Research Grant and Gastrointestinal Oncology Research Innovation Grant. Alongside this, he is undertaking a Master of Biostatistics through The University of Sydney, for which he was recently awarded the 2017 Les Irwig General Epidemiology Award and Australasian Epidemiological Association Top Student Prize.

Dr Sim is excited to join the innovative and outstanding team at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre.

Dr Subotheni Thavaneswaran is a medical oncologist at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre and St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst with interests in the diagnosis and management of colorectal and gastrointestinal cancers, neuro-oncology and clinical trials.

Subo’s appointment as a medical oncologist is part-time as she is undertaking a full-time PhD at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in cancer genomics. She participates in the colorectal and neuro-oncology multidisciplinary team meetings, molecular tumour board meeting, and attends the departmental meetings as well as teaching forums such as journal club.
Background

Subo was awarded MBBS (Honours) from the University of Sydney in 2006 and subsequently undertook junior medical officer and basic physician’s training at Westmead Hospital, Westmead. This was followed by advanced medical oncology training at Westmead and St.George Hospital. She undertook a fellowship at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre from 2015-2016, specifically with the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group (AGITG) and Australasian Lung Cancer Trials Group (ALTG). During this time, she also completed her Master of Medicine (Clinical Epidemiology). In mid 2016 she commenced her PhD “The influence of the germline cancer genome in treatment decisions” at the University of New South Wales. She has been awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award and Australian Genomics Health Alliance top up scholarship.

Subo is currently the coordinating investigator for an investigator-initiated study and is an active sub-investigator on a number of clinical trials at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre. She was awarded the best fast forward presentation award at the AGITG Annual Scientific Meeting in 2016. She holds a number of memberships to professional bodies including MOGA, AGITG, ALTG, and COGNO.

Dr Amy Prawira, MBBS BMedSc FRACP
Staff Specialist in Medical Oncology

Dr Amy Prawira is a medical oncologist specialising in early drug development and head and neck malignancies. She joined the Kinghorn Cancer Centre to lead the Precision Medicine Unit after completing a clinical fellowship under Prof Lillian Siu at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada, where she served as a chief fellow for the drug development program. For her contribution to the patients and oncology community within the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, she was awarded the 2017 Best Fellow Award. Her fellowship focused on early phase clinical trials and in the development of translational studies for patients with head and neck malignancies. She has been an investigator in over 60 early phase clinical trials, and has been involved in the design and set up of a number of investigator-initiated clinical trials. She has received the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2016 Merit Award and the European Society of Medical Oncology 2016 Travel Grant. In 2016, she completed the ECCO-AACR-EORTC-ESMO workshop on methods in clinical cancer research.

She graduated from the University of Melbourne, and completed her general medicine and medical oncology training at the St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and the Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital. Her research interests include the development of predictive biomarkers for treatment response, and the molecular stratification of head and neck cancers.

Nada is a clinical and laboratory haematologist with joint fellowships from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists Australasia. Dr Hamad’s expertise includes malignant haematology and bone marrow transplantation. Dr Hamad completed two post-graduate fellowships in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation and lymphoma from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto Canada. Nada also has an interest in clinical trials and has a specialist certificate in clinical research (Oncology) from the University of Melbourne.

Dr Hamad is committed to clinical research and has a number of internationally peer-reviewed publications. She is an active member of:

• The Australian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG)
• The Haematology Society of Australasia and New Zealand (HSANZ)
• The Bone Marrow Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand (Secretary)
• The American Society of Haematology (ASH)
• The European Society of Haematology (EHA)
• The American Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation
• The European Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation
• The Asia Pacific Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation

Nada is also committed to clinical practice improvement in haematology and is the current Co-chair of the Cancer Institute NSW EviQ Haematology reference committee, which is a highly successful national and international online information resource that provides current evidence-based treatment protocols and information to professionals, patients, carers and their families.

Nada is also very active in medical education and is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales and examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

Background
Dr Hamad studied medicine at the University of Sydney graduating with honours in 2004 and completed her physician and specialty clinical and laboratory haematology training at Royal North Shore Hospital Sydney. Prior to her career in medicine, Dr Hamad completed a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Forensics, working in this field for a short period of time.

Venessa completed her medical oncology training in the Royal Prince Alfred network in 2010 and went on to do her PhD at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in the field of translational genomics in pancreatic cancer.  She is currently a Visiting Medical Officer at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre where she specialises lung and head and neck cancer.  In addition to this, she works as a postdoctoral research fellow involved a variety of projects centred around functional genomics in lung and head and neck cancer.

Dr Joanne Joseph graduated in Medicine from University of NSW in 1986 (Honours II).

Completed Joint Specialist Training in Haematology (FRACP and FRCPA) in 1996 and in 1999, she Completed MD from University of London. She trained at St Vincent’s Public Hospital. She currently holds the positions of Senior Staff Specialist, Department of Haematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. Is the Division Head, Laboratory Haematology at SydPath, is a conjoint Senior Lecturer, St Vincent’s Clinical School, University of NSW and a Consultant Haematologist/Consultant in Thrombosis and Bleeding Disorders, St Vincent’s Clinic, Sydney. She is a member of the following associations; Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Australasian Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis – elected to Council, September 2011, Haematology Society of Australia and New Zealand, Australian Haemophilia Centre Directors’ Organisation, European Haematology Association, Australasian College of Phlebology, her special interests lie in all aspects of laboratory haematology, specifically clinical and research in haemostasis and thrombosis, in particular the investigation and management of patients with platelet and other bleeding disorders. And she is currently involved in a number of research projects being conducted at the St Vincent’s Research Precinct with a clinical translational focus. She supervises PhD students and ILP students from UNSW as well as Advanced Haematology Trainees.