Professor Jayesh Desai is a Medical Oncologist and Clinician Researcher with a predominant focus on early phase clinical trials. Jayesh is the Associate Director Clinical Research at Peter Mac and heads the Phase I/Early Drug Development program is the Deputy-Director of the Parkville Cancer Clinical Trials Unit. He is Director of the Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma Stream.

In terms of clinical research, Jayesh has been the Principal Investigator on over 50 clinical trials over the last ten years, including 40+ Phase I and first in human trials. These have been both investigator initiated, as well as collaborative trials with Pharma and Biotechs, across a broad range of agents. Jayesh has been Chair of the Board of Cancer Trials Australia (CTA) since 2021, having Chaired the Phase I Group for over a decade. He has been a strong advocate for driving early phase clinical trials in Australia and in mentoring trainees and young investigators in developing their careers as clinician researchers. He has authored over 180 publications in high impact journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, The Lancet and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. He has served on the Editorial Board of numerous journals including JCO for a number of terms and has been on committees for both national and international conferences including American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO). Since completing his post-fellowship training in 2006, Jayesh has received approximately $50 million in grant funding.