One of the pioneering melanoma researchers named Australian of the Year has given an emotionally charged speech about his own devastating cancer diagnosis and told the audience “I don’t want to die”.
Prof Richard Scolyer and his research partner Prof Georgina Long – who were presented with the Australian of the Year 2024 in Canberra on Thursday night – are credited with saving the lives of thousands of Australians whose diagnoses of skin cancer would once have proven fatal but are now largely curable.
But Scolyer used his moment in the national spotlight to talk about his diagnosis with stage four brain cancer.
“I love my life, my family, my work. I have so much more to do and to give.”
“I stand here tonight as a terminal brain cancer patient,” Prof Scolyer told the audience in Canberra. “I’m only 57, I don’t want to die.”
Long and Scolyer’s scientific partnership – the pair are co-medical directors of the Melanoma Institute Australia – has led to the use of immunotherapy in the treatment of melanoma. But it was Scolyer’s own 2023 diagnosis that led to groundbreaking discoveries in the life-changing applications of their immunotherapy approach when he and Long developed a series of world-first treatments based on their melanoma work.
By undertaking an experimental treatment at the risk of shortening his life, Scolyer has advanced the understanding of brain cancer and is benefiting future patients.
He has generated public interest by publicly documenting his own cancer treatment and progress.
“I’m one of the many thousands of cancer patients who have travelled this path and thousands will follow,” he said.
“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 that this also makes me.”
Focusing back on their melanoma work, the pair also took the chance to urge a radical rethink of sun safety and tanning and delivered a stirring call to arms after accepting their awards at a ceremony in Canberra on Thursday night.
“Our bronze Aussie culture is actually killing us so we call on advertisers and social media influences stop glamorising tanning or using it to sell or advertise for entertainment,” Long said.
The pioneering scientists challenged people to imagine the outcry if smoking was glamorised in the same way as tanning.
“We must elevate sun safety to equal status with other life-saving safety measures like wearing a seatbelt or a helmet,” Scolyer said.
On the eve of Australia Day, the chair of the National Australia Day Council, John Foreman, said “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.”
Long and Scolyer were congratulated on their achievement by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, at an awards ceremony in Canberra on Thursday evening. Joining them on the podium was Yalmay Yunupiŋu, who became 2024 Senior Australian of the Year. The Yirrkala, Northern Territory teacher, healer and linguist forged bilingual teaching in north-east Arnhem land, preserving the Yolŋu Matha language and Yolŋu culture.
Yunupiŋu, who worked with her late husband, M Yunupiŋu of Yothu Yindi fame and the 1992 Australian of the Year, was praised by Foreman for her “long dedication to the education of the Yolŋu people, her cultural stewardship and leadership as a natural teacher continues to bring communities together”.
Also honoured was swimmer Emma McKeon, who is 2024 Young Australian of the Year. The Gold Coast swimmer is Australia’s most successful Olympian, in 2020 becoming the first female swimmer and the second woman in history to win seven medals at a single Olympics. She has also broken Commonwealth Games, Olympic and world records.
“Emma shows us, with grace and humility, how commitment, hard work and passion can lead to greatness. She is a true role model for all Australians, young and old, on how to pursue your dreams,” Foreman said.
Australia’s Local Hero for 2024 is Winton, Queensland man David Elliott, the co-founder of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum of natural history – “an everyday Queensland pastoralist who discovered something extraordinary,” Foreman said.
The awardees “represent the very best of us” and are “Australians we can all be proud of”, he said.
Long and Scolyer take the reins from the outgoing Australian of the Year, the body image activist and director Taryn Brumfitt.
• This article was amended on 25 January 2024. It is Prof Richard Scolyer, not Prof Georgina Long, who was diagnosed in 2023 with brain cancer.
