Mark Pinese

Dr. Mark Pinese serves as a Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales and Team Leader of the Genomic Childhood Cancer Risk Team at the Children's Cancer Institute. His pioneering work focuses on understanding the genomic basis of childhood cancer risk to enable early detection, improved treatment, and potential prevention strategies for pediatric cancers.

Dr. Pinese completed his undergraduate studies at UNSW Australia focusing on the biology of ageing, followed by doctoral research at the Garvan Institute where he earned his PhD on the molecular determinants of survival in pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients. His academic credentials include a BAdvSc (Hons.) and PhD from UNSW Sydney, where he was awarded the University Medal in Molecular Biology in 2005.

His research spans cancer genetics, sarcoma, bioinformatics, cancer genomics, and next generation sequencing with specialized focus on pediatric cancer risk identification, cancer risk gene discovery, somatic variation signatures, and advanced bioinformatics methods development. Dr. Pinese leads the groundbreaking PREDICT study which examines the genomes of all children with cancer in NSW along with their parents to identify heritable cancer risk factors.

• NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellowship (2019-2024)
• Cure Cancer Australia Researcher of the Year, 2nd Runner Up (2020)
• Precision FDA Truth Challenge Winner (2016)
• University Medal in Molecular Biology, UNSW (2005)
• Multiple conference presentation awards (2016-2019)

Dr. Pinese supervises Honours, Masters, and PhD students in cancer risk genomics, human cohort genomics, rare germline variation, and genomic methods development. His current research is supported by multiple grants including the NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellowship, Cancer Australia Priority-Driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme, and National Computational Infrastructure Merit Allocation Scheme. His work has significantly advanced Australia's capabilities in clinical genomics, including development of the country's first clinically-accredited whole genome sequencing test for rare diseases.

At the Children's Cancer Institute, Dr. Pinese leads the Genomic Childhood Cancer Risk Team which investigates why children develop cancer through comprehensive genomic analysis. Previously at the Garvan Institute, he contributed to the world's largest pancreatic cancer sequencing effort and led analysis of the Medical Genome Reference Bank, the largest genome sequencing cohort of healthy elderly individuals globally. His team's PREDICT study, funded by the Luminesce Alliance, represents a major initiative to transform childhood cancer prevention through genomic insights.