Dr. David Thomas

Dr. David Thomas
Peter MacCallum Cancer Center
East Melbourne, Australia

Dr. David Thomas David Thomas, FRACP, PhD, was born in Brisbane Queensland. He spent 6 years of his childhood in Greece and Austria where he received his primary education, before returning to Melbourne. He undertook his medical degree at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1988. In 1997, he completed his PhD with the University of Melbourne and Fellowship with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians as a medical oncologist. He subsequently undertook post-doctoral studies at Harvard Medical School before returning to Melbourne to establish a translational research program focused on sarcomas. In 2008, Dr Thomas became an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne.

Dr. Thomas is currently a Victorian Cancer Agency Clinician Research Fellow in the Ian Potter Foundation Centre for Cancer Genomics and Predictive Medicine at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He is the Director of a statewide adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer program, onTrac@PeterMac (2005-), the founding Chair of the national co-operative oncology group, the Australasian Sarcoma Study Group, the only non-US member of the science task force for the Young Adult Alliance of the Lance Armstrong Foundation (2007-), and the first non-orthopedic Chair of the Australian Sarcoma Group (2006-8). Dr. Thomas is an editor for Journal of Orthopedic Science and Bioessays, chair of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia national AYA interest group (2008-), and a founding member of the 11-strong World Sarcoma Network (2009-). Dr. Thomas has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, book chapters and white papers. His major interests have included an international phase 2 study targeting RANKL in giant cell tumour of bone, recently published in the journal, Lancet Oncology. In addition, his laboratory has had a long-standing interest in the molecular biology of osteosarcoma, while his current research program focuses on the germline and somatic genetics of sarcomas. He currently is the principal investigator on an international, population-based cohort study of familial cancer risk in adult-onset sarcomas, as well as several early phase clinical trials.