Professor Philip Hogg
Winner: Biomedical Sciences Category, NSW Scientist of the Year 2008 Awards

Professor Philip Hogg is a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Principal Research Fellow and founder and Director of the UNSW Cancer Research Centre.

Genes encode proteins, which are the machinery of life.  All life forms make proteins that contain strong bonds known as disulphide bonds.  Professor Hogg and his team have shown that some of these bonds have evolved to control how proteins work by breaking or forming in a precise way.  He has called these bonds ‘allosteric disulphides’.  Application of this basic research has led Professor Hogg to the development of a novel class of cancer drugs and a new cancer diagnostic.

Cancer is the most common cause of death in NSW, accounting for 30% of deaths annually. Professor Hogg has invented a class of cancer drugs that starves tumours of their blood supply. The drugs that Professor Hogg has developed work by inactivating the cells that make the blood vessels in tumours. Six patients have been treated so far with no reported side-effects.

Professor Hogg has also invented and commercialised a new cancer therapy diagnostic technology that will allow a non-invasive way to measure the death rate of cancer cells. This new technology can be used to assess the effectiveness of current forms of cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, soon after the treatment has started, rather than when it ends.

Professor Hogg’s anti-cancer drugs and new diagnostic technology could translate into a better cure rate and longer life for people with cancer, and it has the potential to bring enormous economic and health benefits for society both nationally and internationally.

Professor Hogg was also a key figure in the establishment of the Lowy Cancer Research Centre at the University of NSW, which is the first enterprise in Australia to bring together childhood and adult cancer research on the one site and will be one of the largest dedicated cancer research centres in the Southern Hemisphere.