Dr Andre Van der Westhuizen is a qualified Medical Oncologist and has been conducting research in the Department of Medical Oncology at Calvary Mater Newcastle in Australia for more than 10 years.  Dr Van der Westhuizen has over 15 years’ clinical experience in medical oncology and has a full time clinical load in Medical Oncology at Calvary Mater Hospital. He has a private practice at Lake Macquarie Private Hospital where he consults weekly on Wednesdays. 

Dr Van der Westhuizen is a principal investigator for 25 studies and sub-investigator for 40 studies (from phase 1 to phase 4), including industry sponsored, cooperative group and investigator driven studies. He focuses primarily on immuno-oncology clinical and pre-clinical research and has been involved in melanoma research since being principal investigator for KEYNOTE-001, an early landmark anti-PD1 therapy trial in cancer. Dr Van der Westhuizen has also been a principal investigator on large breast cancer trials (SOFT, TEXT, SOLE) and on several studies in gastro-intestinal malignancies as well as immuno-oncology driven early phase studies that are not tumour specific.

Dr Van der Westhuizen is actively involved in translational research at the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) of which he has been a member of the HMRI/University of Newcastle DNA repair group since 2013. He has also initiated his own investigator led clinical trials specifically focusing on immunotherapy resistance and re-purposing chemotherapy, epigenetic therapy and other treatments to enhance the response to immunotherapy.

Dr Van der Westhuizen’s interests also extend to the response/exposure relationship of anti-PD1 antibodies, specifically studying anti-PD1 trough levels and blood profile markers in patients on immunotherapy.  Dr Van der Westhuizen also has a master’s degree in genetic counselling and he has led clinical trials where genetic testing for inherited mutations and genetic counselling play an important aspect in the management of cancer.  More information about Dr Van der Westhuizen’s academic achievements, conference presentations and publications can be found at: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2901-5252