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Professor Johnstone is the Head of the Gene Regulation Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Head, The Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, The University of Melbourne.

Professor Ricky Johnstone received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1993 and after a postdoc at Harvard Medical School returned to Melbourne to establish the Gene Regulation Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2000.

Professor Johnstone is the Executive Director Cancer Research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre overseeing ~700 staff and students and plays a key role in strategic decision making across the organisation. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, was awarded an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship in 2015 and in 2011 was promoted to Full Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Melbourne.

Prof Johnstone is a cancer researcher who has utilized genetic mouse models of hemopoietic malignancies and solid tumors to understand the epigenetic changes that underpin tumor onset and progression and to develop new therapies that target epigenetic and transcriptional regulatory proteins.

Prof Johnstone has recently discovered how epigenetic based-agents can engage the host immune system to drive prolonged therapeutic responses.