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A/Professor Lara Lipton works at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Cabrini Health and Western Health in Melbourne. Her principal area of work is gastrointestinal cancer, and she also works in the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Cabrini Family Cancer Clinics.

After returning to Australia after a PhD at Cancer Research UK in Colorectal cancer genetics she has continued research into Gastrointestinal Cancer, primarily Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer and is the current Acting Chair of the Upper Gastrointestinal Working Party for AGITG. She is active in fund-raising for the AGITG.

A/Professor Amitesh C Roy is a senior medical oncologist at Flinders Centre For Innovation in cancer, Flinders Medical Centre. He has completed his specialist training in Medical Oncology at the tertiary care centres in Adelaide and has gained experience as a senior clinical research fellow in the Gastrointestinal Cancer Trials Unit at the Royal Marsden Hospital, UK. His clinical interests include management of gastrointestinal, hepato-pancreatic, neuro-endocrine, melanoma and lung malignancies. He is a current deputy chair of the AGITG upper GI working party and member of the AGITG and MOGA SAC, MASC and is a lead researcher in several investigator initiated cooperative clinical trials. He has co-authored > 80 peer reviewed publications, conference abstracts, guideline documents and book chapters. He is involved in several clinical and translational research projects within the clinical trials unit at the Dept. of Medical Oncology at the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer.

Professor Chantrill is a Senior Staff Specialist Medical Oncologist and Head of Service for Medical Oncology across the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (ISLHD), and Area Clinical Director of Clinical Trials.

She is a key opinion leader and expert in the field of pancreas cancer.  Lorraine completed a PhD by research in the Pancreas Cancer Group at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre in pancreas cancer genomics.  Lorraine continues to be an active clinician researcher trying to bridge the gap between the bench and the bedside.

Lorraine has extensive experience managing Oncology Clinical Trials and is the Principal Investigator on several clinical trials in gastrointestinal cancers.  Lorraine is keen to increase the number of clinical trials conducted in ISLHD and believes clinical trials are not only vital for research but offer hope to participants..

Professional Associations: Australian GastroIntestinal Trials Group (AGITG), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Medical Oncology Group of Australia (MOGA), Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA).

A/Professor Connie Diakos is a medical oncologist working at Royal North Shore Hospital and Genesis Care, specialising in the treatment of gastrointestinal, gynaecological and breast cancers. She is a translational researcher in the Bill Walsh Translational Cancer Research Laboratory in the Kolling Institute at the University of Sydney and a conjoint associate professor. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of inflammation and the immune response in patients with malignancy. She is an active clinical researcher, and is a member of a number of cooperative trials groups, including AGITG where she is a member of the Lower GI Working Party and the Translational Research Committee.

A/Professor Charles Pilgrim offers specialist surgery for cancer and other disorders of the pancreas, liver, gallbladder and bile ducts as well as general and robotic upper gastrointestinal surgery including weight loss (bariatric) surgery.

A/Professor Pilgrim graduated from Monash University in 2000 and entered surgical training at The Alfred, Melbourne. He gained his fellowship in General Surgery in 2007 and in 2008 was the Upper Gastrointestinal Fellow at The Alfred before commencing his PhD though the University of Melbourne at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2009. He completed this in 2012 and moved to the USA to complete a second fellowship as the Surgical Oncology fellow in Hepatopancreaticobiliary (HPB) Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Centre.

A/Professor Pilgrim has published extensively in many high impact factor peer-reviewed medical journals such as the British Journal of Surgery, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Annals of Surgery, Journal of the American Medical Association – Surgery, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery and the journal HPB (the journal of the International HPB association [IHPBA]), on the topics of pancreas cancer, liver cancer and gallbladder cancer, as well as laparoscopic surgery.

He is a member of the IHPBA, AHPBA, ANZHPBA, ANZGOSA, ANZMOSS, SSO, ASCO and the AGITG. He is accredited by GESA to perform gastroscopy and colonoscopy.

A/Professor Pilgrim works with the Victorian HPB Surgery group at Cabrini Medical Centre Malvern and has appointments with the Hepatopancreaticobiliary Surgery Unit at The Alfred, the Trauma Surgery Service at The Alfred and in General and Emergency Surgery at Frankston Hospital. He is an associate professor at Monash University and a Senior trauma instructor and examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He is also a member of the Academy of Surgical Educators with the College of Surgeons.

Mr Daniel Croagh is a Hepatobiliary Surgeon and Interventional Endoscopist. During his surgical training, he undertook a PhD at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in cell biology with a focus on oesophageal stem cells and the development of in-vivo models to investigate Barrett’s oesophagus.

He then completed his training in HPB surgery including a two-year fellowship at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK. After completing his PhD in 2005, he has maintained a strong interest in research whilst completing his training in pancreatic surgery and interventional endoscopy. He is recognised for his training in endoscopic ultrasound and ERCP by the Conjoint Committee for Recognition of Training in Endoscopy.

In the last 10 years, his responsibilities have included contributing to the development of the hepatobiliary surgical service at Monash Health, which caters for a patient catchment of 1.3 million people in the south-east of Melbourne, along with promoting clinical research in the Upper GI and HPB unit. He has devoted a large amount of time to the provision of patient care, staff training and change of management within surgery.

The number of pancreatic resections has increased 4-fold since his appointment in 2011. He has spent approximately 10% of his time on translational research during this period and this has been focused on the clinical trials and the development of EUS-FNA for the molecular profiling of pancreatic cancer to guide patient targeted therapies.

Dr Andrew Oar is a Radiation Oncologist and is currently the clinical research lead at Icon Cancer Centre Gold Coast and actively involved in several clinical trials. He is the principal investigator of the MASTERPLAN trial, which is investigating stereotactic radiation therapy and chemotherapy treatment for pancreatic cancer.

Dr Andrew Oar is actively involved in the AGITG, through his participation on the Upper GI Working Party and the Radiation Oncology Annual Scientific Meeting.

Julie Chu currently works at the Division of Radiation Oncology and Cancer Imaging, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Her clinical research interest include upper and lower gastrointestinal cancers, soft tissue sarcoma and stereotactic radiotherapy.

John Lubel is a gastroenterologist and hepatologist at The Alfred, Northern and Epworth hospitals, and an Associate Professor at Monash University Central Clinical School. He studied medicine at King’s College Hospital in London before arriving in Australia in 2001.He completed advanced training at the Victorian Liver Transplant Unit and was awarded the GESA Young Investigator Award in 2005. In 2008, he returned to the UK for 18 months and was Senior Clinical Fellow in IBD at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

John has written guidelines on the management of hepatitis B and C and non-invasive assessment of hepatic fibrosis. He is the Co-Chair of the GESA Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and hepatitis B consensus statement committees and has served on the GESA Liver Faculty Committee for two terms. John is the current chair of the GESA Scientific Program Committee (SPC) that coordinates the Annual Australian Gastroenterology Conference (AGW) and has been an invited speaker at National and International conferences and has more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference abstracts.

Dr Derrick Siu is a medical oncologist at the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District and a research fellow at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre.

Dr Sarah Maloney is an up-and-coming researcher and the co-chair of the NEO-IMPACT pancreatic cancer clinical trial. She was part of the Early Career Researcher consultation group at the AGITG Strategic Review Workshop.

Dr Deborah Zhou is a research fellow at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre.

Dr Joanna Lee is a research fellow at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre.