Professor Jayesh Desai is a Medical Oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and Associate Director Clinical Research.

Professor Desai has extensive experience in translational research applied to early drug development, particularly in sarcomas and in colorectal cancer. He heads the Phase I/Early Drug Development program and is Deputy-Director of the PCCTU. Peter Mac’s Industry Alliances and Partnerships formal engagements are also led by Professor Desai. He has been Principal Investigator on over 50 clinical trials over the last 10 years including 40 Phase I and first in man trials. These have been both investigator initiated and collaborative trials with Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies. The research has been across a broad array of agents including kinase inhibitors and novel immuno-oncology agents/combinations. He has authored/co-authored approximately 180 publications in journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, The Lancet and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Professor Desai has served in a number of key national/international committees including American Society of Clinical Oncology and European Society of Medical Oncology in Sarcoma and Drug Development. He has been successful in obtaining approximately $50 million in peer-reviewed and direct industry research funding. Professor Desai is the Director of the Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma tumour stream at Peter Mac and has been intimately involved in establishing collaborative sarcoma research in Australia. He co-founded the Australasian Sarcoma Studies Group (now ANZSA) in 2008, acted as its Scientific Chair, and then group Chair. Professor Desai completed his Medical Oncology training in Melbourne in 2002.

He completed a translational research fellowship in sarcoma at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.