Professor Nick Gottardo is an internationally recognised leader in childhood brain cancer research, clinical trials and translational medicine who combines active clinical practice with a nationally funded, multidisciplinary research program generating practice-changing evidence for children with brain tumours in Australia and globally.

He is the Head of the Paediatric and Adolescent Oncology/Haematology Department and the Stan Perron Chair in Paediatric Oncology and Haematology at Perth Children’s Hospital, and the Clinical Director and Chair in Children’s Cancer of the WA Comprehensive Kids Cancer Centre, a joint initiative of The University of Western Australia, The Kids Research Institute and Perth Children’s Hospital.

Nick established and co-leads the Brain Tumour Research Program at the Kids Research Institute Australia, the largest program in Australia specifically focused on childhood brain tumours. The program brings together clinicians and scientists with a focus on providing laboratory evidence that will more accurately inform new paediatric brain cancer clinical trials, testing novel therapies using model systems that more closely recapitulate the human disease.  

Nick graduated from Leeds School of Medicine in1993, obtained his PhD in molecular biology in 2008 through the University of Western Australia and completed postdoctoral training at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the U.S. He chaired the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology/Oncology Group, the peak professional body for paediatric oncologists and health professionals who care for children with cancer and the national cooperative clinical trials group for childhood cancer from 2020 to 2025.