Australian pathologist Richard Scolyer dies at 59 after glioblastoma diagnosis

Richard Scolyer, an Australian pathologist, died Sunday at age 59 after treatment for glioblastoma. Scolyer had worked at the Melanoma Institute Australia and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he diagnosed cases and conducted research at the University of Sydney. He helped create a biobank of melanoma tissue samples in 1998 and contributed to diagnostic frameworks now used internationally.

Melanoma treatment advances When Scolyer began his work, surgery was the only treatment for melanoma and more than 90 percent of patients whose cancer had spread died within five years. Immunotherapy drugs later produced higher survival rates. A randomized phase 2 trial led by Georgina Long found that 42 percent of patients with melanoma that had spread to the brain were alive seven years after treatment with a combination of Anti-CTLA-4 and Anti-PD-1 drugs.

Scolyer and Long also tested giving immunotherapy before surgery. Long said the approach produced complete responses in some high-risk cases.

Target of zero melanoma deaths In 2017, Scolyer and Long set a goal of zero melanoma deaths in Australia. Deaths fell from more than 1,600 in 2013 to about 1,300 in 2023. Survival for stage 3 or 4 melanoma reached 55 percent at five years. Scolyer reviewed more than 2,000 specimens a year and provided second opinions on complex cases sent from around the world.

Brain cancer diagnosis and experimental treatment In May 2023, Scolyer suffered a seizure in Poland and was diagnosed with glioblastoma. He and Long applied the pre-surgical immunotherapy approach used in melanoma to his own treatment, an approach that had not previously been attempted in humans for brain cancer.

Scolyer remained cancer-free for nearly two years. A March 2025 surgery showed the tumor had returned. A study of his treatment was published in Nature Medicine.