Professor Andrew Roberts is a blood cancer researcher and haematologist who has led groundbreaking research to improve blood cancer treatments for nearly 30 years.

He is a WEHI Deputy Director, as well as a clinical haematologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Metcalf Chair of Leukaemia Research at the University of Melbourne.

What inspired you to study hematology?

As a junior doctor, I was exposed to the emotional highs and lows of caring for patients with leukaemia. There were moments of profound joy that came from watching someone recover and reclaim their life. But those moments were often contrasted by watching others deteriorate despite our best efforts. I was troubled by how poor many of our treatments for blood cancers were.

Soon after finishing my clinical training, I started my PhD under Professor Don Metcalf – regarded as the ‘father of modern haematology’ for his devotion to studying how the body generated blood cells.

He is best known for his pioneering discovery of colony stimulating factors, which have helped tens of millions of people worldwide.

This really opened my eyes to how research could provide the solutions we needed, which I found inspiring.

That encounter played a significant role in pushing me towards lab-based research. I developed a relentless determination to uncover new treatments by exploiting basic research discoveries about the biology of these diseases.

What is your most notable research accomplishment?

I have been privileged to work in collaborative teams that have shared my passion for wanting to improve the lives of people living with blood cancers.

In partnership with many colleagues – including Professor Suzanne Cory – the team made critical discoveries about how a protein, known as BCL-2, helps keep leukaemia cells alive.

These findings ultimately led to the development of venetoclax – a blood cancer drug that is now clinically approved in Australia and internationally for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and acute myeloid leukaemia.

It was incredibly exciting to have led the first-in-human trial and the first combination trials of this drug, which was subsequently co-developed for use by US pharmaceutical companies Roche, Genentech (a member of the Roche Group) and AbbVie.

To know that research you worked on is now saving thousands of people around the world – there’s truly nothing more meaningful or rewarding as a scientist.

What is one thing that most people would probably be surprised to learn about you? 

Other than Blood (where I’ve been moonlighting as Editor-in-Chief since 2025), my favourite thing to read is Australian outback noir crime novels – it’s dangerous out there!

Professor Suzanne Cory is one of Australia’s most distinguished molecular biologists, with significant achievements in immunology and cancer research.

She served as director of WEHI from 1996 to 2009 and President of the Australian Academy of Science from 2010 to 2014. She is currently Professor Emeritus of the University of Melbourne and Honorary Distinguished Professorial Fellow at WEHI.

What inspired you to study hematology?

In the mid-1970s, US researchers Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus made the groundbreaking discovery that cancer-causing genes (oncogenes) found in viruses actually originate from normal cellular genes.

Their discovery revolutionised understanding of cancer as a genetic disorder and was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize.

Prior to this finding, Jerry Adams and I were working on immunogenetics – itself a very exciting field. But as soon as we heard about oncogenes, we immediately started exploring this new field.

We found our own entrée by studying the chromosome translocations hallmarking blood cell cancers. Working at WEHI with its rich history of immunology under Gus Nossal and Jacques Miller, and haematology under Don Metcalf, it was natural that we gravitated towards the lymphomas and leukemias.

What is your most notable research accomplishment?

Our lab was amongst the first in the world to discover that Burkitt’s lymphoma is caused by the chromosome translocations that activate the oncogene known as MYC, which drives cell proliferation.

Subsequent research on human follicular lymphoma with Professor David Vaux (then a PhD student) and Professor Andreas Strasser (then a post-doc) led to the surprising discovery that the oncogene Bcl-2 activated by chromosome translocation in this lymphoma promotes cell survival. For the first time, thwarting the cell death process was realised to be a fundamental part of cancer development.

What is one thing that most people would probably be surprised to learn about you?

Growing up, I dreamed of being a novelist. Science sort of crept up on me. Hearing about the discovery of the DNA helix made a deep impression – I fell in love with DNA and have never lost the wonder and excitement of wanting to understand the molecular basis for the life process and how it goes awry in disease.