Professor Joe Trapani AO receives Australia Day Honour
26 January 2024
Peter Mac’s Professor Joe Trapani AO has been named in the Australia Day Honours List and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).
Professor Trapani is cited for his ‘distinguished service to medical research, particularly immunology and the development of immune-based cancer therapies, and to the community’.
In in impactful career spanning more than 40 years, Professor Trapani was instrumental to the development and introduction of immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer.
He was among the first to prove that some cancers (particularly leukaemias and lymphomas) can arise when the immune system fails to recognise and destroy cancer cells early in their development. Up until then, the prevalent view was that the immune system played little or no role in the development or progression of cancer.
In the mid-1990’s, together with Cancer Immunology Program colleagues Drs Phillip Darcy and Michael Kershaw, Professor Trapani began using gene therapy to re-purpose immune killer cells that were harvested from a patient’s blood, so that they could recognise and kill cancer cells when injected back into the patient.
With colleagues Professors David Ritchie and Miles Prince, this led to Australia’s first ever trial of CAR T-cell therapy, commencing in 2006. CAR T-cells now provide life-saving therapy for people with some advanced forms of blood cancer.
In the lab, Professor Trapani’s ground-breaking work on the molecular and cellular mechanisms used by T-cells to kill virus-infected and cancer cells has won him many national and international awards, including the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Prize for Excellence in Health and Medical Research.
Executive Director of Cancer Research at Peter Mac Professor Ricky Johnstone extended his congratulations, saying: “Professor Joe Trapani is an immensely valued colleague who has contributed enormously to cancer research at Peter Mac over almost 25 years.”
“He is an internationally renowned researcher who is unfailingly generous, insightful and strategically gifted and is greatly admired by all he works with.
“His mentorship and support have been instrumental to me personally, and to many others, and this achievement is very well-deserved.”
Professor Trapani has held many leadership roles at Peter Mac, including Head of the Cancer Immunology program (since 2000), Executive Director Cancer Research (2009-18) and Head of the Centre for Cancer Immunotherapy at Peter Mac and the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Alliance.
In 2012, Professor Trapani became Inaugural Head of the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology at the University of Melbourne, which formalised and augmented the highly productive partnership between the two organisations.
He is a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) and the Australian Academy Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS).
In December 2023, Professor Trapani was inducted as a Distinguished Fellow of Peter Mac.
At a community level, Professor Trapani is perhaps best known for having been a member of the Board of Cancer Council Victoria (2007-20) and for Chairing its Medical and Scientific Committee for eight years.
Peter Mac extends warm congratulations to Professor Trapani on this major achievement.