RADIATION THERAPY TECHNIQUES AND COMBINATION TREATMENTS FOR SARCOMA
Professor Angela Hong, Director and
co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Committee,
Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA)
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed Sydney, Australia | January 2025
Professor Angela Hong MBBS, MMed, PhD, FRANZCR is a Professor at Sydney Medical School of the University of Sydney. She is a radiation oncologist and has been a member of the Multidisciplinary Bone and Soft Tissue Tumour Clinic at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital/Chris O’Brien Lifehouse for the past 15 years.
She is also the Director and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA), a non-profit organisation aimed at enhancing treatment outcomes for sarcoma patients across Australia and New Zealand.
As a radiation oncologist located in Sydney, Australia, Professor Hong is focused on treating patients with bone and soft tissue sarcoma. And as a clinician scientist, her research focuses on developing innovative radiation therapy technique and combination treatments to improve the outcome for patients with sarcoma.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Sydney, Angela undertook an 18-month fellowship in the United States to gain additional experience before returning to Sydney to start her formal training in radiation oncology. She later completed her PhD, concentrating on radiosensitivity in skin cancer sarcoma.
Professor Hong believes in a multidisciplinary approach to managing sarcoma, given its rarity and the complexities involved in diagnosis and treatment. She is actively involved in clinical research and recently contributed to an international trial led by Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration (SARC) in the United States and the Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA) in Australia. The trial examined the advantages of including immunotherapy in the treatment regimen for high-risk soft tissue sarcoma, resulting in a notable improvement in two-year disease-free survival rates.
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CASE STUDY: Transforming surgical waitlist into a ‘preparation list’
The DIAMONDS initiative aims to transform the surgical waitlist into a “preparation list,” enabling healthcare professionals to optimise patient care in the months leading up to elective surgery starting at pre-admission phase.
Patients are will be able to complete pre-admission forms online, receive timely updates, and access educational resources to ensure thorough preparation. This will allow staff to spend more time with patients.
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Visceral pain and the gut-brain axis
Professor Stuart Brierley is Director of the Visceral Pain Research Group, Director of the Hopwood Centre for Neurobiology, and Theme co-Leader of Lifelong Health at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI).
Prof Brierley is an international expert on the ‘gut-brain axis’ and chronic visceral pain mechanisms. Current investigations are on a individual cell type called the enterochromaffin cell, and it helps signal pain and anxiety from the gastrointestinal tract to the brain.
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Food and fasting periods as medicine to prevent disease
Professor Leonie Heilbronn is based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), where she leads the Obesity and Metabolism laboratory. Her research is at the interface between basic and clinical science. She is internationally recognised for her work in nutritional modulation in humans and has made major contributions to our current understanding of mechanisms underlying conditions such as insulin resistance, particularly inflammation and lipid metabolism. She has also contributed significantly to current concepts of caloric restriction (CR), intermittent fasting (IF) and time restricted eating (TRE) in humans. She has published more than 110 peer reviewed papers in scientific journals and is an Associate Editor of Obesity, and Obesity Research and Clinical Practice.
