A state funeral will be held next month at the Sydney Opera House for Professor Richard Scolyer, the pioneering cancer researcher and joint 2024 Australian of the Year, whose work reshaped the treatment of melanoma and who publicly battled glioblastoma after his own diagnosis. Professor Scolyer’s wife, Dr. Katie Nicholl, confirmed the details in a social-media post Sunday, stating the family’s gratitude for the honor. The memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Monday, July 13, at the iconic Opera House.
Public tickets will become available starting Monday through the venue’s website, and reports indicate the event will be open to hundreds of Australians wishing to pay their respects. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had previously announced that Professor Scolyer would receive a state funeral in recognition of his contributions to medicine and public life.
“As the joint 2024 Australian of the Year, Professor Scolyer took his place in the national spotlight with determination and purpose as he very publicly dealt with his glioblastoma,” Albanese wrote.
A Career of Breakthroughs
Professor Scolyer, who died earlier this month at age 59 after a long battle with brain cancer, dedicated his professional life to understanding and combating melanoma. An Australian pathologist and medical professor, he specialized in diagnostic oncology and tissue pathology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the University of Sydney.
He led a translational research laboratory and became one of the world’s top publishers on melanoma, focusing especially on diagnosing difficult skin lesions for a large number of patients across Australasia and beyond. His expertise extended to helping edit the World Health Organization classification of tumors of the central nervous system. Alongside his colleague Professor Georgina Long, Scolyer helped transform the outlook for many cancer patients.
Their work centered on a treatment that activates a patient’s own immune system, shifting the approach from seeing certain cancers as a death sentence to making them largely curable. That groundbreaking skin cancer research saved thousands of lives and earned the two researchers the title of co-Australian of the Year in 2024.
Experimental Treatment and Legacy
After being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in May 2023, Professor Scolyer became a subject of experimental treatment himself. He received a personalized cancer vaccine and combination immunotherapy — methods that had shown success against melanoma but were not standard for brain tumors.
The results of his treatment were documented in the journal Nature Medicine to help guide future clinical trials. His public battle with glioblastoma provided a high-profile look at the challenges of aggressive brain tumors and highlighted the potential of immune-based therapies beyond their original applications. The state funeral at the Sydney Opera House on July 13 will give the public an opportunity to honor a man who, according to Dr. Nicholl’s post, changed how we understand and treat cancer.
Professor Scolyer’s life and work matter because they demonstrated that by harnessing the immune system to fight the disease, researchers can alter the prognosis for patients who previously had few options. His legacy, embedded in the research he led and the clinical guidelines he helped shape, continues to influence oncologists and pathologists around the world.
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