Program Organising Committee

Prof Rodney Hicks
University of Melbourne

Rod is a Professor of Medicine and Radiology at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Centre for Cancer Imaging at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Peter Mac installed the first PET/CT outside Europe and North America in 2001 and now has an experience of over 75,000 PET studies performed in the facility founded by him in 1996. He holds numerous national and international research grants and is Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Imaging, as well as serving on 8 other editorial boards. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed articles with over 13,000 career citations. A major focus of his clinical research has been to assess the impact of PET on patient management and prognostic stratification. In addition, he is actively involved in radionuclide therapy with a major focus on neuroendocrine tumours. He was the recipient of a major translational research grant from the Victorian Cancer Agency to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for this group of diseases. He received a prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council Program Grant in 2013 and an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship in 2015. He was also induced as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science in 2015. In 2016 he will be the Convener of the 4th Theranostics World Congress in Melbourne.

Dr John Leyden
Unicorn Foundation Australia

Dr John Leyden is the Chair and co-founder of the Unicorn Foundation Australia. Dr Leyden has been a driving force in the development of the Unicorn Foundation since inception and has tirelessly engaged with Australian NET Specialists, government agencies, cancer organisations and patients to form an ‘Australian NET community’. Dr Leyden has dedicated time and effort to all aspects of the Unicorn Foundation’s mission – awareness raising, education, patient support, advocacy and research with the overarching aim to ensure that every Australian NET patient receives unsurpassed medical care. Over the last decade, he has been a potent advocate for equitable and timely access to peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (Lutate) and PET (Ga-68) scanning for Australian NET patients. He is a passionate about improving quality and safety in medicine and the promotion of the Health Consumer role. Dr Leyden is the past president on the International Neuroendocrine Cancer Alliance (INCA); Treasurer of Health Consumers New South Wales (HCNSW) and the Executive Committee member of the Patient Experience and Consumer Engagement (PEACE) Committee of the Agency of Clinical Innovation, NSW.

Simone Leyden
Unicorn Foundation Australia

Simone Leyden is the CEO and co-founder of the Unicorn Foundation Australia, a not for profit medical charity directed towards Neuroendocrine Cancers. In her role as CEO, Simone concentrates on rare cancer patient advocacy, fundraising, marketing and awareness, support projects, managing volunteers and managing the paid specialist NET Nurse who among other roles runs the Unicorn Foundation telephone and internet support service. Simone is on various committees including HCA (Health Consumer Advocacy Australia), HTAi Emerging Economies and Asia Pacific working subcommittee, communications committee member for the International Neuroendocrine Cancer Alliance (INCA), work stream contributor for the Cancer Drugs Alliance White Paper and Private Health Care Australia Consumer Group.

Josh Mailman
NorCal CarciNET Community

Josh has an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA and has been a technology entrepreneur for over 20 years. Currently Josh is the President of the NorCal CarciNET Community and COO of the World Association of Radio Molecular Therapy (WARMTH). Josh is the past Chair of the Patient Advocacy Advisory Board for the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) as well as a former executive board member of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) were he was named SIO Patient Advocate of Year in 2010. Josh is a member of the National Cancer Institutes’ Task force on Neuroendocrine Tumors. In 2015 Josh was honoured with a Presidential Distinguished Service Award from the SNMMI and the Warner Advocacy Award for Neuroendocrine Tumor patient advocacy. Josh resides in Oakland, California with his family.

Linda Ryding
Unicorn Foundation Australia

Linda started at the Unicorn Foundation in 2015 in an administration role to provide support with fundraising, events, database management and other related tasks. Personal experience with Neuroendocrine cancer due to her father being diagnosed many years earlier led to this career path.  Her professional background includes working in IT as a Software Implementation Consultant then progressing to be Director of an accounting software business.  Linda has previously worked as a freelance writer assisting businesses with their editorial and web content.  She has also written and published a cookbook and had many articles printed in a wide range of magazines.

Paul Stephenson
Unicorn Foundation Australia

Paul is a NET Patient, an active member of the Victoria Patient Support Group, and Treasurer for the Unicorn Foundation (since 2012). He was 'luckily' diagnosed in April 2010 following a CT scan for a non-related ailment. Two major surgeries in 2010, were followed by 26 months of 'controlling' injections with Sandostatin LAR Octreotide. From February – August 2014, Paul completed the Lu-177 PRRT therapy. Post-treatment scans and 12-month post treatment scans, confirm an approximate 84% reduction in tumour ‘mass’. Paul’s professional experience started in Chartered Accounting, progressed to a range of Financial Controller roles, before migrating to Supply Chain and Procurement, focusing on major IT and Operational project implementations (12 years with Telstra). Paul is now an independent consultant, helping businesses maximise the operational benefits of their IT implementations.

Dr Rob Ware
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Rob Ware is a Nuclear Medicine physician working at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre where he has been involved with the PET programme since its inception in 1996. He also works and lives in Hobart. His main clinical and scientific interests are the use of radionuclide methods for characterizing and treating cancer and the application of Evidence Based Medicine in Health Technology Assessment. He is also a Director and part owner of Cyclotek, a major supplier of PET tracers for clinical and research use in Australia and New Zealand.